Managing for delicious ecosystem service under climate change: can United States sugar maple (Acer saccharum) syrup production be maintained in a warming climate?

Abstract

Sugar maple (Acer saccharum) is a highly valued tree in United States (US) and Canada, and its sap when collected from taps and concentrated, makes a delicious syrup. Understanding how this resource may be impacted by climate change and other threats is essential to continue management for maple syrup into the future. Here, we evaluate the current distribution of maple syrup production across twenty-three states within the US and estimate the current potential sugar maple resource based on tree inventory data. We model and project the potential habitat responses of sugar maple using a species distribution model with climate change under two future General Circulation Models (GCM) and emission scenarios and three time periods (2040, 2070, 2100). Our results show that under GFDL-A1Fi (high CO 2 emissions), sugar maple habitat is projected to decline (mean ratio of future habitat to current habitat per state = 0.46, sd ± 0.33), which could lead to reduced maple syrup production per tree and nearly 5 million additional taps required to maintain current projection levels. If global emissions are reduced and follow a lower trajectory of warming (under PCM-B1), then habitat for the species may be maintained but would still require management intervention. Finally, our results point to regions, particularly along the northern tier, where both climate change impacts and currently developing sugar maple habitat may signify viable opportunities to increase maple syrup production.

Utilizing the density of inventory samples to define a hybrid lattice for species distribution models: DISTRIB‐II for 135 eastern U.S. trees

“…It used a grain size of 20 × 20 km to summarize 38 environmental variables and aggregate species IVs, generally among two or more inventory plots, within the eastern United States (Iverson et al, ). DISTRIB has been used to predict potential current and future HS for 134 tree species under various scenarios of climate change; outputs are available from the Climate Change Tree Atlas (http://www.fs.fed.us/nrs/atlas, Prasad, Iverson, Peters, & Matthews, ) as are various vulnerability assessments (Brandt et al, ; Swanston et al, ) and general summaries of potential impacts (Iverson et al, ; Matthews & Iverson, ; Prasad et al, ).…”

An integrated assessment of the potential impacts of climate change on Indiana forests

“…Another non-timber forest product in Indiana that may be affected by climate change is the $0.6 million per year maple syrup industry (Matthews and Iverson 2017). While maple trees are predicted to decrease in some parts of the state and increase in others, changes in climate can directly affect sap production.…”

“…The assessment included projected changes in tree habitat by ecological section (Iverson et al 2008) as well as vulnerability ratings and summaries by ecological community that synthesized multiple model results, observational data, and expert opinion (Brandt et al 2017, Iverson et al 2017. A primary concern for the Refuge is increased flood duration and severity from projected increases in heavy rain events during the growing season.…”

Nexus thinking – how ecosystem services concepts and practice can contribute balancing integrative resource management through facilitating cross-scale and cross-sectoral planning

“…A first set of papers in this issue is motivated on more generalized land-use planning and land management aspects at landscape scale (e.g., Cebrián-Piqueras et al 2017;Pinto-Correia et al 2017;Sil et al 2017;Syrbe et al 2017). Meanwhile a second set of papers is centred on cases where the incorporation of ES concepts supports the implementation of nexus thinking in planning and decision making (e.g., Bezák et al 2017;Grunewald et al 2017;Inkoom et al 2017;Martínez Pastur et al 2017;Matthews and Iverson 2017;Peri et al 2017). The first group of papers comprises the elaboration of methodological frameworks in the search to develop options towards more sustainable landscapes.…”

“…The ES nexus concept could help to detect mismatches between the policy sectors that could jeopardize the overall aim of a sustainable development through stirring competing spatial prioritization and land management strategies. Examples on this approach in this issue are the papers from Sil et al (2017), Martínez Pastur et al (2017), Matthews and Iverson (2017) and Syrbe et al (2017).…”