Strategic Application of Topoclimatic Niche Models in Managing Forest Change

Abstract

Forest management traditionally has been based on the expectation of a steady climate. In the face of a changing climate, management requires projections of changes in the distribution of the climatic niche of the major species and strategies for applying the projections. We prepared climatic habitat models incorporating heatload as a topographic predictor for the 14 upland tree species of southwestern Colorado, USA, an area that has already seen substantial climate impacts. Models were trained with over 800,000 points of known presence and absence. Using 11 climate scenarios for the decade around 2060, we classified and mapped change for each species. Projected impacts are extensive. Except for the low-elevation woodland species, persistent habitat is rare. Most habitat is lost or threatened and is poorly compensated by emergent habitat. Three species may be locally extirpated. Nevertheless, strategies are described that can use the projections to apply management where it is likely to be most effective, to facilitate or assist migration, to favor species likely to be suited in the future, and to identify potential climate refugia.

A climate analog approach to evaluate seed transfer and vegetation transitions

“…Euclidean distances are based on 19 climate variables (Supplementary Table S2) and are of documented utility in studies of plant responses to climate (e.g., Sáenz-Romero et al, 2010;Rehfeldt et al, 2012;Chaney et al, 2017;Worrall and Rehfeldt, 2021). Climate variables include six variables of temperature, seven precipitation variables, and six variables involving temperature-precipitation interactions.…”