Leveraging the 2018 balsam fir dieback in the Acadian Forest to quantify forest vulnerability to increasing climate anomalies

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The Acadian forest of eastern Canada is of high ecological value and of significant economic importance to the local forestry sector. In the spring of 2018, a rare, large-scale, balsam fir dieback event occurred across the region, killing only certain individuals or small groups of trees. This dieback occurred following a combination of climatic anomalies including prior-summer drought and a winter warm spell. This mortality event provides a unique opportunity to measure the vulnerability of fir, a key Acadian species, and the associated wood supply, to future climate anomalies in this region. Here, we propose to: (1) identify the climatic anomaly responsible for the 2018 regional dieback and compare it to historical climate anomalies from previous balsam fir diebacks, and (2) collect field information across multiple sites to isolate within-stand factors that may amplify risks of mortality. We plan to build on the initial survey by New Brunswick provincial authorities by identifying climate and stand-related risk factors and thresholds to aid forestry stakeholders in eastern Canada to better model and predict future changes in balsam fir health under climate change. This will enable proactive forest management in at-risk areas to better mitigate future degradation of wood supply. Further, this project aligns strongly with the mandate of the partner organization, the Canadian Forest Service-Natural Resources Canada (CFS-NRCan), specifically with its Climate Change Adaptation program, which directly supports research addressing the adaptation of the Canadian forestry sector to climate change. Results from this project have high potential to support CFS-NRCan knowledge on the protection and competitiveness of Canada's forestry sector and applications from this research will be disseminated to all forestry stakeholders in the region.