Growing in colder climate than seed origin Growing in warmer climate than seed origin Photo Courtesy of Greg O'Neill Climate Adapted Seed Tool (CAST) www.ReforestationTools.org 2050 A Crisis and Opportunity • California forests are not adapted to rapidly changing climate conditions. • With climate-adapted seed transfer we can take proactive steps to adapt forests to climate change. Expected Impacts of Seed Transfer Expected Impacts—if deployed across private land in CA starting in 2021 By 2050 By 2060 Additional CO2 Sequestered [million tonnes/yr] 2.3 4.1 Market Value of Additional CO2 Sequestered [million USD/yr] $77 $138 Additional % of Net 2018 CA GHG Emissions Sequestered [%/yr] .5% 1% Additional Timber Production [million board-ft/yr] 142 256 Climate Adaptation Mismatch Tree populations tend to be genetically adapted to their local historical climate conditions. But the climate is changing fast. Trees are long-lived and can’t disperse as effectively as animals to track their suitable climate. Reforestation is an opportunity to help trees move to reach their ideal climate conditions. Climate Transfer Functions CAST uses climate-transfer functions fit to data from seed-transfer experiments to estimate the relative growth rate (e.g., growth, survival) of each candidate seed source. An evidence-based tool to improve reforestation outcomes. • Trees grow to become resistant to fire more quickly • Greater carbon sequestration • Greater timber production • Forest Health • Reduced mortality • Faster recovery into desired habitat types Seed-Transfer Datasets We’re working to incorporate data from 368,000 trees planted in seed-transfer experiments across western North America into CAST. Forward thinking scientists began establishing these experiments in 1910 and scientists are still working to establish new experiments. However, the bulk of our data currently comes from outside California. Scaling up the number of seed transfer experiments planted in California’s diverse regions will be critical to best adapting our forests to climate change. Greg O'Neill BC Forest Service Jessica Wright US Forest Service Joe Stewart UC Davis Species abco abma acma alru pico pije pimo pien pipo pisi potr psme qulo thpl tshe N. Provenances 14 9 42 47 184 3 145 182 42 30 180 77 95 10 57 N. Sites 5 5 3 2 60 3 7 26 10 9 3 6 2 6 5 N. Trees 9.1k 3.3k 13.8k 4.1k 70.7k 4.6k 22.1k 110k 10k 31.9k 9k 25.3k 7k 4.1k 42.7k Last Meas. Age [field-yrs] 18-26 18-26 10 10 20-35 41 16 10-15 8-80 10-15 3 17- 100 6 15 5-25 Planting Yr(s) 1976- 1979 1976- 1979 2008- 2009 1995 1974 1973 1988 2000- 2005 1910 - 1992 2000 2000- 2007 1915- 1975 2014- 2015 1991 1993- 2005 Spatial Accuracy and Uncertainty Climate is a Moving Target Mean Annual Temperature [°C] Percent Decline in Productivity Due to Climate-Adaptation Mismatch Probability Probability Sung et al 2021 Team PICO, RCP8.5 Ensemble Seed Source Planting Site Jim Thorne UC Davis Steve Ostoja USDA Climate Hub Jessie Godfrey UC Davis Selecting seed for warming climate conditions inherently involves tradeoffs between optimizing for colder conditions in the near term and hotter conditions in the long term. CAST currently defaults to balancing this tradeoff by to optimizing for anticipated climate conditions ≈ 20 yrs. in the future. It also includes options for optimizing over longer or shorter time horizons. Ryan Boynton UC Davis % Decline in Productivity Without CAST CAST allows users to input precise spatial information and is also backwards compatible with California’s legacy system of seed zones and elevation bands. Because of considerable climatic heterogeneity (i.e., uncertainty) within the legacy spatial units, users who use precise spatial information are likely to achieve better outcomes (i.e., ≈ 5% greater growth rates). % Decline in Productivity without CAST