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We know that the diversity of European forests has been shaped by hundreds of thousands of years of climate upheavals. This diversity is the legacy of long-term adaptive and diversification processes, and must be treasured and cherished for its ecological value, as the basis for breeding, and as an economic resource. A century of forest biology has taught us that forest trees are adapted to local and continental environmental gradients. We’ve learned this partly from studies of how different tree provenances perform in different ecological regions.

The network of Genetic Conservation Units (GCUs) established in Europe and coordinated by EUFORGEN is our repository of valuable forest tree diversity. The network of GCUs holds a fair representation of European forest tree genetic diversity, including the genetic bases of local adaptation. Yet, the ongoing climate change forces us to change the way we perceive adaptation and resilience. Locally adapted forests are facing abrupt environmental changes with climate upheavals that are now tens or hundreds of times faster than they used to be. We need to understand whether our treasure chest will resist these shocks, and what we can do to protect it.

Because climate change is occurring faster than we can establish provenance tests, we need to characterise the properties of our diversity in situ, and we need to be able to assess their adaptive potential both to gradual climate change and extreme events. This requires a multi-pronged approach, capable of evaluating and modelling short-term, plastic responses and long-term, adaptive processes, which together determine resilience.

In the new project “FORGENIUS”, we will harness the power of remote sensing, genomics, advanced phenotyping, and multiple modelling approaches to assess the capacity of GCUs to persist in the long term. We will study the capacity of trees in these units to resist extreme droughts, assess their growth and adaptive potential under predicted climate scenarios, and provide information about properties of economic value.

“FORGENIUS builds upon the knowledge and expertise accumulated by the forest research communities over decades through projects such as EvolTree and GenTree”, says Ivan Scotti, the project coordinator. “The results will feed into the renewed EUFGIS information system, which will be turned into a tool able to evaluate the network of genetic conservation units as a whole and suggest where new units should be set up.”

This new, flexible, rapidly reacting platform for surveying forest diversity in Europe will be a game-changer for scientists, managers, and all European citizens who care for the protection of forest biodiversity.

FORGENIUS is funded in the framework of EU Horizon 2020 and is due to start on 1 Jan 2021. The project is coordinated by INRAE. EFI will lead the work on communication and stakeholder engagementand contribute to work packages aiming at improving the EUFGIS Information system and associated services.