A study published by European researchers sounds the alarm: climate change is drastically reducing the range of species available to foresters planting today. Drawing on species distribution models calibrated from 238,080 inventory plots and covering 69 European tree species, the authors modelled the continuous climatic suitability window across the entire 21st century.<\/p>\n
The findings are concerning: only species that are climatically suitable both today and by 2100 are genuinely available for current forestry use. When this continuity constraint is applied over the lifespan of a tree planted today, climate change reduces the available species pool by 33 to 49% relative to current values, depending on whether a moderate (RCP 2.6) or severe (RCP 8.5) scenario is considered. This phenomenon represents a genuine species-level bottleneck for forest managers.<\/p>\n
The implications are wide-ranging. On average, only 3.18 species with high timber production potential, 3.53 for carbon storage, and 2.56 for biodiversity conservation remain usable across the full century, per square kilometre. These figures directly undermine the multifunctionality objectives assigned to managed forests.<\/p>\n
The study calls into question the adaptation strategy based on diversification through mixed-species stands. In the absence of a sufficiently large pool of durably suitable species, this approach risks being difficult to implement at scale.<\/p>\n
The authors urge managers to begin now anticipating species selection by incorporating projected climatic suitability across the full rotation period, rather than relying solely on current conditions.<\/p>","protected":false},"featured_media":46318,"template":"","acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n