Concept of the Project

Nearly 40% of Europe and North America is covered by forests, which provide important ecosystem services, biomass and wood resources (FA0, 2006). Their persistence is challenged today by the increasing evidence of the ongoing climate change occurring at a much faster rate than during the past natural climatic oscillations (Solomon et al., 2007). The predicted responses of forest trees can be summarized in three different scenarios: persistence through migration in a more suitable environment, persistence through local adaptation, and extirpation (Aitken et al., 2008).

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Overall Goal and Achievements

Read more about the FoResTTraC Roadmap


Project Rationale

As the evidence of climate change has been continuously reinforced by new data in recent years (IPPC reports, Solomon et al., 2007), the consequences of this change on forest ecosystems have raised considerable concern. A recent review commissioned by the DG Agriculture has shown that the expected impacts will be driven by major biotic and abiotic gradual changes as well as biotic and abiotic stochastic disturbances (pest and disease outbreaks, fire and windstorm occurrences) (Lindner et al. 2008).

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There are several ongoing large scale projects in forest genomics aiming at discovering genes of adaptive and economic significance and monitoring their diversity in natural populations (read more about the projects in Europe, the USA and Canda). FoResTTraC will extend these efforts by building the next generation research projects linking genomics and ecology for understanding the response of trees to climatic change. The projections will elaborate on joint approaches that can be explored comparatively between the two continents to predict adaptive trajectories of tree populations.