Development of climate niche models reflecting among -population variation for major forest tree species in British Columbia

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Climate niche models have been widely used to assess the impact of climate change on forest trees and ecosystems and to develop adaptive strategies in forest resources management (FRM). However, these models have been criticized for both the lack of adequate independent validation and for ignoring among-population genetic variation within species. In addition, the model output (i.e., presence/ absence) is not directly relevant to productivity. Thus, it is important to validate the biological significance of these models and to advance their applications for FRM. In this proposed research program, I will relate the output of climate niche models to adaptive traits and to develop next-generation climate niche models to overcome their limitations. The specific objectives include: 1) to test whether a next-generation of climate niche models are capable of predicting growth potential as well as presence/absence; 2) to apply the new climate niche models in combination with ecosystem classifications to reflect among-population genetic variation for 10 forest tree species; and 3) to define populations through integration of predicted growth potential, ecosystem classification, genomic information and provenance trial data. To do so, I will use the Ecological Plot data from the Ministry of Forests, Lands, natural Resource Operations and Rural Development (MFLNRORD) of British Columbia (BC) and the plot data from Forest Inventory Analysis in the US to build climate niche models. Independent tree growth information for validation of the models will be obtained from the Vegetation Resource Inventory (VRI) in BC. For ecosystem classifications, I will use the Biogeoclimatic Ecosystem Classifications (BEC) for BC. For the areas outside BC, I am in the process of developing BEC-equivalent forest ecosystem classifications for Alberta and western States of US in collaboration with MFLNRORD ecologists. Genomic information will come from the AdapTree and CoAdapTree projects, and provenance trial data will be obtained from MFLNRORD. These objectives will be met using my experience and skills in developing climate and climate-niche models, new methods for analyzing provenance data, and methods for predicting phenotypic traits using genomic data. The outcome of this research program will contribute to a better understanding of the biological significances of climate niche models and well-defined populations of major forest tree species. With my involvement in developing BC's new “Climate-based Seed Transfer System” for MFLNRORD, the next-generation climate niche models will be readily implementable in the tool to improve forest adaptation strategies in the province. By mentoring four new graduate students and three undergraduates within this program, I will be helping train the next generation of climate modelers to deal with these environmental issues provincially, nationally and globally.