Assessing forest tree risk of extinction and genetic degradation from climate change

SUMMARY: Climate change poses a severe threat to the viability of several forest tree species, which may be forced either to adapt to new conditions or to shift their ranges to more favorable environments; species with limited geographic ranges are at highest risk. To help natural resource managers, land-use planners, and conservation organizations target tree species for monitoring, conservation, and management activities, EFETAC scientists are using spatial models of future environmental conditions to predict and map the location and quality of habitat for several hundred North American forest tree species. Known as the Forecasts of Climate-Associated Shifts in Tree Species (ForeCASTS) project, scientists are also determining where each species, within its current range, is most susceptible to extinction as a result of climate change.

Scientists have mapped global range shifts for 215 tree species under different climate change models and emissions scenarios for the years 2050 and 2100. Most species’ predicted suitable ranges closely follow or are slightly more extensive than actual ranges under present conditions. ForeCASTS also includes maps of Minimum Required Movement that detail the closest geographic locations, or “lifeboat” areas, offering future suitable habitat conditions and show the likelihood of local extinction following climate change.
 

EFETAC’S ROLE: The project is being led in cooperation with EFETAC Ecologist Bill Hargrove, and is supported by EFETAC funding.

STATUS: Ongoing

PROGRESS: Researchers have prepared the Forest Inventory and Analysis training data for the production of maps predicting the location and quality of current and future habitat of 215 North American tree species using EFETAC ecologist Bill Hargrove’s Multivariate Spatio-Temporal Clustering (MSTC) technique. These datasets were then used to generate, for each species:

• 18 habitat suitability maps (currently suitable habitat for each species, and future suitable habitat under two global change models and under two climate change scenarios in 2050 and 2100, each separately for the conterminous United States and for the globe), and

• seven maps of Minimum Required Movement (MRM), which identify areas of potential risk as a result of change over time in the location of suitable habitat.
These sets of 25 maps for each species were generated twice, once with elevation as a spatial environmental characteristic and once without, to compare the results between the two. (See examples below.)

The collaborators have also designed a Web site for the presentation of these results. This site includes a description of the overall project, background information on how the maps are generated, and an explanation of how to interpret the maps. To fill in these gaps for the future generation of MSTC and MRM maps, researchers searched for additional species occurrences from the Global Biodiversity Information Facility data portal (http://data.gbif.org). 

Left: Multivariate Spatio-Temporal Clustering results for Shumard oak (Quercus shumardii), depicting currently suitable habitat (left) and habitat predicted to be suitable in 2100 under the Hadley B1 scenario. Click image to enlarge.

Right: Minimum Required Movement results for American sycamore (Platanus occidentalis), depicting areas of habitat overlap and non-overlap (right) between currently suitable habitat (top left) and habitat predicted to be suitable in 2100 under the Hadley B1 scenario (bottom left). Click image to enlarge.

Left: Minimum Required Movement results for American sycamore (Platanus occidentalis), depicting the distance (right) between between currently suitable habitat (top left) and habitat predicted to be suitable in 2100 under the Hadley B1 scenario (bottom left). Click image to enlarge. 

Potter, K.M. and W.W. Hargrove. 2012. Determining suitable locations for seed transfer under climate change: A global quantitative method. New Forests 43(5-6):581-599. (PDF)

Potter, K.M., W.W. Hargrove, and F.H. Koch. 2010. Predicting climate change extirpation risk for central and southern Appalachian forest tree species. Proceedings from the Conference on Ecology and Management of High-Elevation Forests of the Central and Southern Appalachian Mountains. J.S. Rentch and T.M. Schuler, eds. Snowshoe, West Virginia, May 14-15, 2009. General Technical Report NRS-P-64. Newtown Square, Pennsylvania: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Northern Research Station. pp. 179-189. (PDF)

This research has been described in a number of presentations.

LINKS:

Atlas of Climate Change Genetic Risk

USDA Forest Service Southern Research Station

North Carolina State University

USDA Forest Service Forest Health Monitoring Program

CONTACT: Kevin Potter, NCSU Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources, kevinpotter@fs.fed.us or (919) 549-4071

Updated December 2012