Suitability of Fagus orientalis Lipsky at marginal Fagus sylvatica L. forest sites in Southern Germany

Abstract

European beech (Fagus sylvatica L.) is the most important tree species in Central Europe and is considered to be relatively resistant to climate warming. However, dry summers in the last five years led to considerable damage in beech stands in Southern Germany (SG). Assisted migration of drought resistant beech provenances including those of Oriental beech (Fagus orientalis Lipsky) may help to stabilise Central European beech forests under climate change. The focus of this study is to compare the climatic ranges of F. sylvatica and F. orientalis using quantile distribution of climatic variables based on WorldClim data at forest sites within their natural distribution area. Temperature, precipitation, and aridity quantile ranges showed that F. orientalis is better adapted to warmer and drier climate compared to F. sylvatica. The quantile distribution method was applied to the whole range of the species to map the habitat suitability for both species at marginal sites in the target region (SG) in the current climatic scenario (1970-2000) and in a warmer scenario (+2°C) using the climate marginality index (CMI), i.e., the distance of sites to the xeric edge at low-latitude and low-altitude distribution limits for the species. To this purpose we applied the simple BIOCLIM algorithm using annual temperature and precipitation as climatic variables. According to our results, F. orientalis seems a promising species with a high potential for future afforestation activities in Southern Germany, especially at marginal sites of European beech forests. However, before introducing F. orientalis on a larger scale in the study area, further research on the species ecology and genetics are needed. For further application of the quantile range method, we produced tables of the vigintiles of the climatic range for both species, which can be used for estimating CMI based on WorldClim data in other regions.

Niche modelling suggests low feasibility of assisted gene flow for a Neogene relict tree, Castanea sativa Mill.

“…Recently, studies investigating AFG for Fagus sylvatica with the subspecies F. sylvatica subsp. orientalis distributed in the Caucasus region conducted with SDMs suggest the potential genetic gains of such management strategy (Mellert & Šeho, 2022;Kurz et al, 2023). In contrast, our SDMs-based analysis predicted a limited application of AGF in the European populations of C. sativa with the Caucasian populations.…”

“…Species distribution modelling are relatively easy to use tools for predicting possible scenarios of species range change, and are therefore widely applied to assist conservationists and forest managers (Mellert & Šeho 2022;Sękiewicz et al, 2020;Freitas et al, 2022;. SDMs inherently have some level of uncertainty and limitations that researchers must consider, especially when planning such advanced management strategies as AGF in long-lived tree species.…”

“…Despite the static approaches to defining future ranges offered by SDMs, they can provide initial guidance for the conservation and management of tree populations and have been shown to provide information on potentially maladapted populations (Pecchi et al, 2019;Sękiewicz et al, 2020;Mauri et al, 2022;Mellert & Šeho, 2022;. Ideally, climate modelling combined with recognised local adaptation patterns should inform the design of AGF strategies and policies (e.g., Borrell et al, 2020).…”

Comparative Phylogeography of Tree Species in the Hyrcanian Forests, Iran by Genome-wide SNPs

“…The higher genetic diversity of species in the Hyrcanian forests holds great potential for developing future forests, for example, in Europe, which forests represent lower genetic diversity partly due to glaciations (Gömöry et al, 2007;Koskela et al, 2007). By implementing assisted migration of seed sources and species from the Hyrcanian forests, it is possible to enhance the resilience and resistance of future European forests to ongoing climate change (Budde et al, 2023;Kurz et al, 2023;Mellert and Šeho, 2022;Mellert et al, 2023). The field trials are established in Denmark with Caspian plant materials to assess their adaptive potential and suitability for North European conditions a (Stanturf et al, 2018).…”

Drivers of wood‐inhabiting fungal diversity in European and Oriental beech forests

“…This underlines the need to combine findings and research from regions of both beech species. Moreover, in the context of climate change, European forest managers are considering Oriental beech as a potential tree in the future (Mellert & Šeho, 2022 ). This seems justified because a recent presence of this species in Italy is proved from 45,000‐year‐old DNA pollen samples (Paffetti et al., 2007 ) and because many saproxylic species specialization to trees is more at the genus than the species level as shown recently for saproxylic beetles (Vogel et al., 2020 ).…”