GSS EU Science Funding Gateway

Proposals should:

• Conduct research and networking on provenance trials or common gardens, with new trials and reassessment of older provenance tests using phenotypic traits related to climate change adaptation. This analysis should guide adaptive forest management to choose appropriate forest reproductive material, including its use through assisted migration. This may also lead to a requirement for research into adaptive silvicultural management of stands to support the efficient and sustainable deployment of forest genetic resources.
• Evaluate the impact of forestry activities on forest genetic diversity, develop new cultural trajectories to protect and sustainably use forest genetic resources in naturally regenerated forests, and quantify the ecosystem services provided by forest genetic resources.
• Focus on methods and strategies to breed forest reproductive material with a higher genetic diversity, to diversify tree species composition when establishing new forests and regenerating existing forests. Biomass properties, essential for wood-based products as well as properties related to resilience to climate change induced disturbances, need to be safeguarded or enhanced in the new reproductive material.
• Develop methods and tools to expand the production capacity of nurseries and the diversity of forest reproductive material produced to anticipate and mitigate the impact of extreme weather events, stimulate the development of nurseries in regions where forest reproductive material with useful characteristics is available, establish an EU network of forest nurseries assisting each other with the provision of forest reproductive material, and ensure the traceability of the material from the nursery to the final planting site.
• Expand the EU Forest Reproductive Material Information System (FOREMATIS) and link it with existing information systems to provide information on genetic conservation units with useful properties, to serve as a decision-support tool on where to best source and/or plant forest reproductive material.
• Cover different climate/biogeographical regions in Europe.