Abstract

The Adaptive Silviculture for Climate Change (ASCC) project was developed to test ecosystem-specific adaptation approaches. The first ASCC trial was installed on the Cutfoot Experimental Forest (CEF) in northern Minnesota, USA, in 2014. Three adaptation treatments (resistance, resilience, and transition), along with a no action control, were tested and compared using Forest Vegetation Simulator to determine their relative success.

Abstract

The Adaptive Silviculture for Climate Change (ASCC) network tests silvicultural treatments to promote ‘resistance’ or ‘resilience’ to climate change or speed ‘transition’ to new forest types. Based on projected increases in air temperatures and within-season dry periods in southeastern USA, we installed resistance, resilience and transition treatments involving species selection and varied intensities of density reduction, plus an untreated control, in mixed longleaf pine-hardwood woodland in southwest Georgia USA.

The strengths of the Adaptive Silviculture for Climate Change (ASCC) project are based on a common set of core criteria that makes the Network distinct from other long-term silviculture and climate-adaptive ecological research experiments.

The strengths of the Adaptive Silviculture for Climate Change (ASCC) project are based on a common set of core criteria that makes the Network distinct from other long-term silviculture and climate-adaptive ecological research experiments.

Abstract

Climate change is expected to impact the function, health, and productivity of many northern latitude forests, including North American mixed-pine ecosystems. Additionally, forest managers face increasing challenges to sustaining forests in the face of high uncertainty associated with response to climate change. The Adaptive Silviculture for Climate Change (ASCC) project was developed to provide operational-scale research opportunities to assess and demonstrate various adaptation approaches to forest management in regionally important forest types.

Abstract

Western larch forests are iconic in the interior northwest, and here we document the preemptive steps that scientists and managers are taking to steward these forests into the future. Changing climate is forecast to have acute and chronic impacts on growth and disturbance in western larch forests. A group of scientists and managers in the northern Rocky Mountains have teamed up with the Adaptive Silviculture for Climate Change Network in an experiment to proactively manage forests for climate adaptation.

The Mississippi National River and Recreation Area (MNRRA) is an urban national park featuring cross-jurisdictional partnerships along the river in the Minneapolis-Saint Paul metropolitan area. The ASCC installation within the park in Saint Paul is the first Affiliate ASCC project to be planned and implemented in an urban setting. Initial study will take place in Crosby Farm Regional Park in a floodplain forest ecosystem, dominated by an ash-elm mixed lowland hardwood forest type.

Abstract

Forest managers in the United States must respond to the need for climate-adaptive strategies in the face of observed and projected climatic changes. However, there is a lack of on-the-ground forest adaptation research to indicate what adaptation measures or tactics might be effective in preparing forest ecosystems to deal with climate change. Natural resource managers in many areas are also challenged by scant locally or regionally relevant information on climate projections and potential impacts.