Learning to adapt to an uncertain future: linking genes, trees, people and processes for more resilient treescapes (newLEAF)

树木保护区——我们的林地、森林、城市树木——对我们的环境、我们的健康和福祉，以及我们通过大幅增加景观中树木数量的计划向零碳经济过渡的能力至关重要。然而，气候变化和病虫害风险的增加前所未有地威胁着英国的树木。未来是不确定的，但我们知道，我们的树篱必须改变，才能生存和繁荣。虽然我们可能认为树木是永久的或固定的，但事实上，它们具有惊人的动态能力，并在与人类寿命相关的时间尺度上发生变化。事实上，往往只有人类的干预才能阻止人口的变化和适应。例如，在允许不受控制的放牧的地方，很少或根本没有再生发生，新的遗传多样性没有机会进入种群和种群适应。要使树木具有恢复力，变化是必不可少的，但变化可以采取多种形式——从低干预，允许再生，但几乎不采取其他行动，到高度管理的情况，如生产性林业，在这种情况下，可以深思熟虑地选择部署特定的基因型来跟踪环境变化。为了理解、适应和塑造树篱中的变化，我们必须首先了解树篱在过去是如何变化的，然后量化它们在未来有多大的变化潜力，最后开发出将变化融入树篱的方法，以及我们与它们互动的方式。该提案概述了newLEAF项目，该项目旨在评估利用树种内广泛的自然遗传变异来跟上气候和生物（病虫害）环境预期变化的选择。首先，我们将从英国过去100年的树逃逸管理中学习，将政策和实践的历史信息与地面树木种群变化的数据结合起来，了解政策层面的选择与树逃逸恢复力结果之间的联系。然后，我们将量化英国主要树种的自然和人类选择所能实现的适应率，重点关注与预测环境适应性和对害虫和病原体易感性相关的特征。我们将比较自然再生与种植对与树木相关的生物群落发展的影响，特别是真菌和昆虫媒介，它们有可能介导风险。直接从实验工作中，我们将设计包含性状变异数据的模型，并将评估树种内部适应性如何在不同成分、配置和不同管理制度下使用，以产生具有内置跟踪环境变化能力的多样性和动态树逃逸，即使这种变化是不确定的。我们将测试工具和策略，以尽量减少害虫和病原体的风险，特别是那些与景观中树木数量计划增加有关的风险，并从我们的焦点物种及其相关群落之间的相互作用中学习。与利益相关者合作，我们将探索可用于影响景观变化的社会和经济驱动因素，从英国历史环境政策及其结果中学习，并从欧洲类似系统的关键案例研究中学习。特别关注的是人们参与不确定性、活力和变化的概念，研究整合科学和艺术的新方法，并围绕这些想法创作新作品。将这个多元化和多学科的团队聚集在一起，我们将提供新的研究、指导、政策建议、艺术和科学为基础的工具，这些工具将推动英国未来自由的弹性事业。

Treescapes - our woodlands, our forests, our urban trees - are critical to our environment, our health and well-being and our ability to transition to a zero carbon economy via plans to substantially increase tree numbers in the landscape. However, climate change and increasing risks from pests and disease threaten the UK treescape like never before. This future is uncertain but we do know that our treescapes must change to survive and thrive. Although we may see treescapes as permanent or fixed, in truth they have an amazing capacity to be dynamic and shift on timescales that are relevant to human lifespans. Indeed, it is often only human interventions that have prevented populations from changing and adapting. For example, where uncontrolled grazing is allowed, little or no regeneration occurs and there is no opportunity for new genetic diversity to enter the population and for the population to adapt. For treescapes to be resilient, change is essential, but this can take many forms - from low intervention, allowing regeneration but taking little other action, to highly managed situations like production forestry, where deliberate choices can be taken to deploy particular genotypes to track environmental shifts. To understand, live with and shape change within treescapes, we must first learn from how treescapes have changed in the past, then quantify how much potential they have to change in the future, and finally develop ways of building change into our treescapes and the ways we interact with them. This proposal outlines newLEAF, a project to evaluate options for using the extensive natural genetic variation within tree species to keep pace with expected changes in climate and the biotic (pest & disease) environment. Firstly, we will learn from the past 100 years of treescape management in the UK, bringing together historical information on policy and practice with data on changing tree populations on the ground to understand the link between choices made at a policy level and the outcomes for treescape resilience. Then we will quantify the rate of adaptation that can be achieved by both natural and human selection in key tree species for the UK, focusing on traits linked to fitness in forecasted environments and susceptibility to pests and pathogens. We will compare the impacts that natural regeneration versus planting has on the development of biotic communities associated with trees, particularly fungi and insect vectors with the potential to mediate risk. Drawing directly from the experimental work, we will design models incorporating data on trait variability and will evaluate how internal adaptability within tree species can be used, in varying compositions, configurations and under different management regimes, to generate diverse and dynamic treescapes with an in-built capability to track environmental changes, even when that change is uncertain. We will test tools and strategies to minimise risk from pests and pathogens, especially those associated with planned increases in tree numbers in the landscape, learning from the interactions between our set of focal species and their associated communities. Working with stakeholders, we will explore the social and economic drivers that can be deployed to effect change in the landscape, learning from historical environmental policies and their outcomes in the UK and from key case studies in similar systems across Europe. A particular focus will be on people engaging with the concepts of uncertainty, dynamism and change, studying new ways to integrate science and the arts and creating new works framed around these ideas. Bringing together this diverse and multidisciplinary team, we will produce new research, guidance, policy recommendations, art and science-based tools that will advance the cause of resilience in the UK's future treescape.