Maps
The sites and populations behind OptFORESTS
Trials, provenances, and experimental sites across Europe and beyond
The genetic diversity held within and between tree populations is what allows forests to cope with drought, pests, and a shifting climate. It is the focus of OptFORESTS and this map shows where that work takes place.
Every point is a place the project works with. Some are provenances, the populations that seed and plant material come from. Others are trials, where trees from many provenances or different genetic units are planted together under the same conditions. A third group are experimental sites, where forest management itself is under test. Between them they reach from the boreal north to the Mediterranean, and to a handful of populations beyond Europe's borders.
Switch the layers on and off to explore, and select any point to see the information recorded for it. The sections below explain what each kind of location is for, and what the colours stand for.
⚠ What the map does and does not show
The map is a snapshot of a project still under way, and the datasets continue to grow as fieldwork progresses. Each pop-up shows only the fields recorded for that point, and locations for which no coordinates are available are not displayed.
Three questions, three kinds of location
Every point on the map is shaped and coloured to tell you two things: the shape gives the type of location, and the colour gives the work package it belongs to. The three types exist because the project asks three different questions.
▲ Where does the material come from?
The triangles are provenances, the populations from which seed or plant material originates. Trees in one valley have been shaped over generations by the conditions of that place, so they are not interchangeable with the same species growing elsewhere. Several of the provenances mapped here are marginal or peripheral populations at the edge of a species range, including sites outside Europe. These have persisted through the climatic oscillations of the Quaternary, are often genetically distinct, and can carry adaptations to extreme or fluctuating conditions, particularly to drought.
● How do different origins perform?
The circles are trials, also known as common gardens, where trees from many provenances are planted together under the same conditions. Because the environment is shared, differences in survival, growth, phenology or wood properties can be attributed to genetics rather than to circumstance. Some of these trials are mature common gardens established by earlier generations of forest scientists, which the project is revisiting to measure traits recorded only rarely until now, among them increment cores and wood density. Others are being established during the project itself.
■ How does management change diversity?
The squares are experimental sites. Rather than comparing origins, they are used to develop and test management options for stands that are already in decline, including enrichment plantings established together with local forest actors.
Which work package does what
Colour identifies the work package each point on the map belongs to, one of the numbered blocks of work that make up an EU-funded project. OptFORESTS has eight, and the four below have locations in the field. Colour and shape are independent: WP2, WP3, and WP5 each have both provenances and trials, while WP4 appears only as experimental sites.
WP2
Diversity of forest genetic resources
WP2 draws on 75 mature common gardens across 13 countries, covering 11 tree species or species complexes, from widespread species such as the white oaks to those underused in European forestry, such as European larch.
WP3
Next generation common garden trials
WP3 is establishing next generation common garden trials across all major biogeographical regions of Europe, deliberately including underused species and unique tree lineages from marginal habitats, whose populations of origin may be proposed as genetic conservation units.
WP4
Forest management and genetic diversity
WP4 examines how forest management shapes genetic diversity, from the effects of selective thinning to the silviculture of genetically mixed stands and the management of declining forests. The experimental sites on this map belong to this work.
WP5
Breeding with and for high genetic diversity
WP5 develops low input breeding strategies that maintain genetic diversity rather than narrowing it. Its trials have a known family structure, which makes it possible to estimate how traits are passed from one generation to the next.