Genomic and Demographic Insights into Red Spruce Responses to Climate in Northeastern Forests

Forests in the Northeastern United States face increasing environmental stress, making their health and resilience a matter of ecological and economic concern. Assessing the adaptive capacity for forest trees to remain productive even when encountering challenging growing environments is critical to maintaining healthy, resilient forests that provide important ecosystem services and products for human well-being. This project uses cutting edge tools from genomic DNA sequencing and statistical modeling to assess the sensitivity of forest trees to loss of adaptation, focusing on red spruce (Picea rubens) -- an important component of mid- to high-elevation forests in the northeast. Our findings have driven innovation of the integrative use of genomics to model forest tree adaptation. Specifically, we found that our predictive model incorporating data on genomic variation coupled with environmental data on temperature and precipitation provides significant predictions of tree survival and growth under novel environmental conditions. This new insight has been used by our partners with The Nature Conservancy and the U.S. Forest Service to assist with forest conservation, restoration, and management objectives, and provides an important new tool to facilitate optimizing seed sources for reforestation and restoration objectives.