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Chapter 13
Building a Framework for Adaptive
Silviculture Under Global Change
Anthony W. D’Amato, Brian J. Palik, Patricia Raymond,
Klaus J. Puettmann, and Miguel Montoro Girona
Abstract Uncertainty surrounding global change impacts on future forest condi-
tions has motivated the development of silviculture strategies and frameworks
focused on enhancing potential adaptation to changing climate and disturbance
regimes. This includes applying current silvicultural practices, such as thinning
and mixed-species and multicohort systems, and novel experimental approaches,
including the deployment of future-adapted species and genotypes, to make forests
more resilient to future changes. In this chapter, we summarize the general paradigms
and approaches associated with adaptation silviculture along a gradient of strategies
ranging from resistance to transition. We describe how these concepts have been oper-
ationalized and present potential landscape-scale frameworks for allocating different
adaptation intensities as part of functionally complex networks in the face of climate
change.
A. W. D’Amato (B
)
Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources, University of Vermont, 81 Carrigan
Drive, Burlington, VT 05405, USA
e-mail: awdamato@uvm.edu
B. J. Palik
USDA Forest Service Northern Research Station, 1831 Hwy. 169 E, Grand Rapids, MN 55744,
USA
e-mail: brian.palik@usda.gov
P. Raymond
Direction de la recherche forestière, ministère des Forêts, de la Faune et des Parcs du Québec,
2700 rue Einstein, Québec, QC G1P 3W8, Canada
e-mail: patricia.raymond@mffp.gouv.qc.ca
K. J. Puettmann
Department of Forest Ecosystems and Society, Oregon State University, 321 Richardson Hall,
Corvallis, OR 97331, USA
e-mail: Klaus.Puettmann@oregonstate.edu
© The Author(s) 2023
M. M. Girona et al. (eds.), Boreal Forests in the Face of Climate Change,
Advances in Global Change Research 74,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-15988-6_13
359
360 A. W. D’Amato et al.
13.1 Introduction
Silvicultural systems have long been intended to represent a working hypothesis
adapted over time to address unanticipated changes in treatment outcomes or the
impacts of exogenous factors, including natural disturbances and changing market
conditions and objectives (Smith, 1962). Nevertheless, silvicultural approaches have
assumed a general level of predictability in outcomes, with risks avoided or mini-
mized through a top-down control of ecosystem attributes and properties, such as
dominant tree species and genotypes, stand densities, soil fertility, and age structures
(Palik et al., 2020; Puettmann et al., 2009). The increasing departure of environmental
conditions from those under which many of these silvicultural practices and systems
were developed has led to an explicit need for adaptive silvicultural approaches that
account for future uncertainty and novelty in forests around the globe (Millar et al.,
2007; Puettmann, 2011).
This chapter summarizes the general frameworks and approaches for developing
silvicultural strategies that confer adaptation to forest ecosystems in the face of
novel dynamics, including changes in disturbance and climate regimes and the
proliferation of nonnative species. Experience with adaptation silviculture is in its
infancy compared with traditional applications. Therefore, our focus is primarily on
early outcomes of operational-scale experiments and demonstrations and landscape-
and regional-scale simulations of long-term dynamics under adaptive silvicultural
approaches. Our goal is to introduce new conceptual frameworks for adaptive silvi-
culture as context for the chapters in Sect. 13.5 of this book. Although the discussion
is focused on temperate and boreal ecosystems in North America and Europe, the
conceptual frameworks are appropriate for many different forest ecosystems around
the globe. Subsequent chapters provide more detail on specific facets of managing for
adaptation in boreal ecosystems, including the role of plantation silviculture and tree
improvement (Chap. 14), management for mixed species and structurally complex
conditions (Chap. 15), and large-scale experiments inspired by natural disturbance
emulation (Chap. 16).
M. M. Girona
Groupe de Recherche en Écologie de la MRC-Abitibi, Forest Research Institute, Université du
Québec en Abitibi-Témiscamingue, 341, rue Principale Nord, Amos Campus, Amos, QC J9T
2L8, Canada
e-mail: miguel.montoro@uqat.ca
Department of Wildlife, Fish, and Environmental Studies, Swedish University of Agricultural
Sciences (SLU), SE-901 83 Umeå, Sweden
Centre for Forest Research, Université du Québec à Montréal, P.O. Box 8888, Stn. Centre-Ville,
Montréal, QC H3C 3P8, Canada
13 Building a Framework for Adaptive Silviculture 361
13.1.1 Silvicultural Challenges in the Face of Climate
Change
Historically, silvicultural approaches and practices have reflected changing economic
and social conditions (Puettmann et al., 2009). In contrast, ecological conditions have
been sufficiently constant that foresters did not see the need to alter silvicultural
approaches to accommodate changing ecological conditions. As a result, climate
change enhances existing challenges and adds novel complexities to silviculture,
given the limited experience of managing forests in a rapidly changing environ-
ment (Table 13.1). From a forest management perspective, the overarching challenge
for addressing global change is to deal with trends and the uncertainty of future
climate and disturbance regimes and the associated ecosystem dynamics and soci-
etal demands (Puettmann, 2011). In this context, selected aspects of climate change
are being predicted rather consistently, e.g., the general increase in temperature and
growing season length in boreal forests. Other aspects of climate change provide
additional challenges of high uncertainty, including the magnitude of temperature
increases among regions. Even more challenging are predictions of, for example,
contrasting and variable precipitation patterns (Alotaibi et al., 2018).
The degree of certainty of future conditions influences the ability to prepare and
minimize negative impacts (Meyers & Bull, 2002; Puettmann & Messier, 2020).
Silvicultural practices directly aimed at accommodating temperature increases, for
example, can be implemented relatively easily (Chmura et al., 2011; Hemery, 2008;
Park et al., 2014), for instance favoring species or genotypes adapted to the projected
Table 13.1 Categories of silvicultural challenges with examples, confidence in current predictions,
and conceptual basis from the ecological literature for respective silvicultural practices
Challenge Example Confidence Conceptual basis
Changing growing
conditions
Increased temperature,
longer growing season
High Tree and stand vigor
(Camarero et al., 2018),
niche theory (Wiens et al.,
2009)
Uncertainty of predicted
trends
Changes in the
seasonality of
precipitation
Low Insurance hypothesis
(Yachi & Loreau, 1999)
Unpredicted events Changing population
dynamics of existing
insect or fungal species
Low Insurance hypothesis
Scale mismatch—long
term
Time needed to change
stand structure or
species mixtures
High Niche dynamics (Brokaw
& Busing, 2000)
Scale mismatch—short
term
Species or provenances
selected to fit in future
climates cannot grow
under current climate
High Niche dynamics
362 A. W. D’Amato et al.
temperatures. In contrast, foresters have less confidence when selecting specific silvi-
cultural practices to accommodate novel disturbance regimes or an altered seasonality
of precipitation patterns. In such cases, multiple practices may be promising, but the
specific selections can only be viewed as bet hedging (sensu Meyers & Bull, 2002),
which is based conceptually on the insurance hypothesis (Yachi & Loreau, 1999).
Another challenge arises through a temporal-scale mismatch. Forests are slow to
respond to many silvicultural manipulations, e.g., conversion from single to multiple
canopy layers will likely take several decades. Thus, managing for changing condi-
tions requires a certain lead time (Biggs et al., 2009), an unlikely scenario with the
immediacy of future climate and other global changes. At the same time, managing
for future climate conditions can result in short-term incompatibilities or mismatches
that may generate near-term undesirable outcomes in regard to ecosystem produc-
tivity and structure (Wilhelmi et al., 2017) and lead to failures (e.g., regeneration)
that may be viewed as too risky in reforestation activities.
Natural disturbances are crucial elements to consider in any silvicultural planning
because of their substantial economic and ecological implications and potentially
significant impact on forest productivity, carbon sequestration, and timber supplies
(Flint et al., 2009; Kurz et al., 2008; Seidl et al., 2014). Climate change predictions
indicate that the effects on boreal ecosystems will be profound, and natural distur-
bance cycles (e.g., fire, insect outbreaks, and windthrow) will generally increase in
frequency and severity (Seidl et al., 2017). These projections introduce a potentially
massive new challenge to silvicultural planning. For example, the first evidence of
the northward movement of spruce budworm (Choristoneura fumiferana) outbreaks
has recently been reported combined with an increase in the frequency and level of
damage during the last century; these findings indicated climate change to be the
main cause of the altered spatiotemporal patterns of spruce budworm outbreaks in
eastern Canadian boreal forests (Navarro et al., 2018). Climate change is expected
to expand the range of natural disturbance variability in forest ecosystems beyond
those under which past strategies, including ecosystem-based management (Chris-
tensen et al., 1996), have been developed. Thus, a better understanding of how forest
landscapes will respond to alterations in natural disturbances is needed to mitigate
negative effects and adapt boreal forest management strategies to projections of
climate change.
Vulnerability assessments of ecosystem attributes that quantify sensitivity to
projected climate changes and the adaptive capacity to respond to these and distur-
bance impacts (Mumby et al., 2014) have become a common strategy for addressing
uncertainty. These assessments are also used to guide where adaptive silviculture
may have the greatest benefit for meeting long-term management goals (Gauthier
et al., 2014). In practical terms, the vulnerability of a forest type is based on the degree
of climate and disturbance impacts expected in a region and the ability of the forest
to respond to those impacts without a major change in forest conditions in terms of
structure and function (Janowiak et al., 2014). Just as with actual climate change,
vulnerability can vary regionally stemming from differences in biophysical settings
within the stand because of variable tree-level conditions (e.g., resource availability
and tree species, size, and age) and temporally owing to ontogenetic shifts in tree-
13 Building a Framework for Adaptive Silviculture 363
and stand-level conditions (Daly et al., 2010; Frey et al., 2016; Nitschke & Innes,
2008). Therefore, adaptation strategies must be tailored to regional and within-stand
vulnerabilities and be flexible to account for changing vulnerabilities over time.
For example, adaptation strategies applied to ecosystems having a low vulnerability
may resemble current management practices and be designed to maintain current
forest conditions and refugia (Thorne et al., 2020). In contrast, strategies applied to
highly vulnerable ecosystems, such as those in boreal regions where natural migra-
tion is expected to be outpaced by climate change and disturbance impacts (Aubin
et al., 2018), may need to employ deliberate actions to increase adaptive capacity.
In the latter case, silvicultural strategies may look very different from current prac-
tices. The following section outlines general adaptation strategies broadly recog-
nized for addressing climate change. However, their appropriateness for any given
situation must be informed by regional- and site-level vulnerability assessments and
overall management goals. The remaining sections present outcomes of adaptation
approaches specific to temperate and boreal forests.
13.2 General Adaptation Strategies
Generally, active adaptation practices are categorized into resistance, resilience, and
transition (also referred to as response) strategies (Millar et al., 2007; Table 13.2;
Fig. 13.1). Note that passive adaptation, while included in Table 13.2, is not discussed
further in this chapter, given our focus on active management strategies. Nevertheless,
passive approaches, including reserve designation and protection, remain important
strategies in the portfolio of options for addressing climate change impacts. Although
presented as discrete categories, adaptation strategies fall along a continuum, such
that implementation of an adaptation approach may involve elements of two or three
categories (Nagel et al., 2017). Moreover, aspects of the tactics and outcomes associ-
ated with adaptation strategies are often conceptualized within a complex adaptive-
systems framework (Puettmann & Messier, 2020; Puettmann et al., 2009), with
structural and functional outcomes and associated multiscale feedbacks created by
resistance, resilience, and transition strategies serving to confer ecosystem resilience
(Messier et al., 2019). Thus, reliance on multiple adaptation strategies that bridge or
reflect more than one category within and across stands is emphasized to generate
cross-scale functional linkages and dynamics that allow for rapid recovery and
reassembly following disturbances or extreme climate events (Messier et al., 2019).
Resistance strategies focus on adaptation tactics designed to maintain the currently
existing forest conditions on a site (Millar et al., 2007) and can be viewed as an
expansion of silvicultural practices typically used to maintain and increase tree vigor
and limit disturbance impacts (Chmura et al., 2011). A litmus test for a resistance
strategy asks whether the forest is still maintaining development trends in structure
and composition within observed ranges of variation after exposure to a given stressor
relative to areas not experiencing these treatments. Many of these tactics focus there-
fore on reducing the impacts of stressors, e.g., extreme precipitation events, drought,
364 A. W. D’Amato et al.
Table 13.2 Climate change adaptation strategies with associated goals, assumptions, and example
management actions. Adapted from Millar et al. (2007)and Paliketal. (2020)
Strategy Definition Goal Assumptions Example actions
Passive No actions
specific to climate
change are taken
Allow a response to
climate change
without direct
intervention
High risk in the
mid- to long term,
low effort, good
social acceptance
(initially)
Harvest deferral on
areas considered to
have low
vulnerability in the
near term; reserve
designation,
particularly in areas
expected to serve as
climate refugia
Resistance Improve the
defense of a forest
to change
Maintain relatively
unchanged
conditions over
time
Low risk in the
near term and
moderate effort,
high social
acceptance
Density
management and
competition control
to increase resource
availability to crop
trees; removal of
nonnative species;
reduction of fuel
loading to minimize
fire impacts;
removal of low
vigor and high-risk
individuals through
stand improvement
treatments
Resilience Accommodate
some change but
remain within the
natural range of
variability
Allow some
change; encourage a
return to a condition
within the natural
range of variability
Medium risk in
the midterm and
medium effort,
good social
acceptance
Regeneration
methods that
encourage and
maintain
multicohort and
mixed-species
forest conditions
(selection, irregular
shelterwood);
deliberate retention
and maintenance of
diverse structural
attributes and
functional traits
(continued)
and disturbance agents, including fire, insects, and diseases, by manipulating tree-
and stand-level structure and composition to reduce levels of risk (Swanston et al.,
2016).
For example, treatments that increase the abundance of hardwood species in
conifer-dominated boreal systems may be categorized as resistance approaches given
that they decrease the risk and severity of wildfires (Johnstone et al., 2011) and
13 Building a Framework for Adaptive Silviculture 365
Table 13.2 (continued)
Strategy Definition Goal Assumptions Example actions
Transition Accommodate
change, allowing
an adaptive
response to new
conditions
Actively facilitate
the shift to a new
condition to
encourage adaptive
responses
High risk in the
near term and high
effort, low social
acceptance
(initially)
Regeneration
methods focused on
encouraging
genotypes and
species expected to
be adapted to future
climate and
disturbance
regimes; generation
of a wide range of
environmental
conditions in
stands, ranging
from high-resource,
open areas to
buffered reserve
patches; can
include enrichment
planting as part of
multi-aged systems
or the establishment
of novel plantations
representing
future-adapted
individuals
reduce stand vulnerability to insect outbreaks, such as from spruce budworm, that
target conifer components (Campbell et al., 2008). More generally, the application
of thinning treatments to increase the available resources for residual trees and thus
minimize drought and forest health impacts (Bottero et al., 2017; D’Amato et al.
2013) or fuel reduction treatments to reduce fire severity (Butler et al., 2013) repre-
sent resistance strategies broadly applicable to many forest systems. Regardless of
the tactics employed, resistance strategies are generally viewed as limited to being
near-term solutions but also represent low-risk approaches that are easily understood
and implemented by foresters. Thus, they may be suitable for a stand close to the
planned rotation age (Puettmann, 2011). Relying solely on resistance strategies is
more problematic in the long term given the increasing difficulty and costs expected
in maintaining current conditions as global change progresses (Elkin et al., 2015),
particularly in boreal regions where the climate is and will be changing rapidly (Price
et al., 2013).
As with resistance strategies, resilience strategies largely emphasize maintaining
the characteristics of current forest systems; however, the latter differs somewhat by
maintaining and enhancing ecosystem properties that support recovery. Therefore,
these strategies allow for larger temporary deviations and thus a broader range of
366 A. W. D’Amato et al.
Fig. 13.1 Gradient of adaptation strategies in a northern hardwood forest in New Hampshire,
United States (center column panels) and red pine forests in northern Minnesota, United States
(right-hand column panels) ranging from a passive, b resistance, c resilience, to d transition. Left-
hand column panels represent kriged surfaces associated with tree (≥10 cm DBH) locations in
a 1 ha portion of treatment units in the northern hardwood forests. The passive strategy repre-
sents a no-action approach. Resistance strategies represent single-tree selection focused on main-
taining low-risk individuals in northern hardwood forests (cf. Nolet et al., 2014) and thinning treat-
ments in red pine forests to increase drought and pest resistance (D’Amato et al., 2013). For both
examples, the resilience strategy comprises a single-tree and group selection with patch reserves—
similar to variable-density thinning, cf. Donoso et al. (2020)—to increase spatial and compositional
complexity (harvest gaps were planted in the red pine forests with future-adapted species found in
the present ecosystem). The transition strategy represents continuous cover (northern hardwoods)
or expanding gap (red pine) irregular shelterwoods with the planting of future-adapted species in
harvest gaps (northern hardwood) or across the entire stand (red pine). Note that the photos in the
bottom row are focused on the harvest gap portion or irregular shelterwoods. Photo credits Anthony
W. D’Amato. Kriged surfaces created by Jess Wikle.
13 Building a Framework for Adaptive Silviculture 367
compositional and structural outcomes, often bounded by the range of natural vari-
ation for the ecosystem (Landres et al., 1999). A litmus test for a resilience strategy
is to ask whether the forest conditions return to the ecosystem’s existing range of
conditions (or historical ranges) after stand response to a treatment and exposure
to a given stressor. In contrast to resistance strategies, which try to minimize devi-
ation from current or historic conditions and processes, resilience strategies aim to
increase an ecosystem’s ability to recover from disturbances or climate extremes in an
attempt to return to pre-perturbation levels of different processes (e.g., aboveground
productivity) and structural and compositional conditions (Gunderson, 2000).
Ecosystem attributes and conditions identified as conferring resilience include
vegetation and physical structures surviving disturbance (i.e., biological legacies or
ecological memory; Johnstone et al., 2016), as well as mixed-species forest condi-
tions in which there is a high degree of functional redundancy among constituent
species (Bergeron et al., 1995; Biggs et al., 2020; Messier et al., 2019). Thus, most
resilience strategies focus on creating two general stand conditions: mixed species
and a heterogeneous structure. In the case of mixed-species conditions, resilience
is conferred by including species having a range of functional responses, including
different recovery mechanisms following climate extremes (e.g., drought tolerance;
Ruehr et al., 2019) and reproductive strategies following disturbance events (e.g.,
sprouting or seed banking; Rowe, 1983). Approaches that encourage heterogeneous,
multicohort structures can reduce vulnerabilities given that climate and disturbance
impacts vary with tree size and age (Bergeron et al., 1995; Olson et al., 2018), and
the presence of younger age classes provides a mechanism for the rapid replace-
ment of overstory tree mortality via ingrowth (O’Hara and Ramage, 2013). Many
of these approaches often build from and resemble ecological silviculture strategies
developed to emulate outcomes of natural disturbance regimes for a given forest type
(D’Amato & Palik, 2021).
Transition strategies represent the largest deviation from traditional silvicultural
frameworks and are applied under the assumption that future climate conditions
and prevailing disturbance regimes will become less suitable or even unsuitable
for current species and existing forest structural conditions, such as the often high
stocking levels used for timber management in many forest types (Rissman et al.,
2018). A litmus test for a transition strategy asks whether the expected development
of forest characteristics in response to the treatment will eventually fall outside
the range of natural variation and accommodate novel conditions. These strategies
focus therefore on transitioning forests to species and structural conditions that are
predicted to be able to provide desired ecosystem services under future climate and
disturbances (Millar et al., 2007). In many cases, transition strategies include the
deliberate introduction of future-adapted genotypes or species (e.g., Muller et al.,
2019), sometimes through assisted migration, thereby increasing the representation
of species and functional attributes likely to be favored under future disturbance and
climate regimes (e.g., Etterson et al., 2020). Correspondingly, transition approaches
carry the most risk (Wilhelmi et al., 2017); they are often controversial (Neff &
Larson, 2014), partly because of a lack of site-level guidance for determining the
appropriate future species and provenances for a given region (Park & Talbot, 2018)
368 A. W. D’Amato et al.
and a general uncertainty surrounding how introduced species or genotypes may
behave at a given site (Whittet et al., 2016; Wilhelmi et al., 2017).
Central to resilience and transition strategies is recognizing the functional
responses associated with structural and compositional conditions created by a given
set of silvicultural activities (Messier et al., 2015). This includes considering the
response traits of species favored by a given practice, both in terms of their ability to
persist in the face of changing climate regimes and their ability to respond and recover
following future disturbances ( Biggs et al., 2020; Elmqvist et al., 2003). Although an
understanding of certain functional traits, namely shade tolerance, growth rate, and
reproductive mechanisms, has always guided silvicultural activities ( Dean, 2012),
the novelty of global change impacts requires a broader integration of traits, such as
migration potential, that emphasizes the mechanisms conferring adaptive potential
within and across species (Aubin et al., 2016; Yachi & Loreau, 1999). Obtaining and
summarizing the relevant trait values for many species remain critical challenges in
many regions. However, the development of indices that rank species on the basis of
suites of traits associated with key sensitivities and responses, such as regeneration
modes (e.g., sprouting ability, seed banking) and drought and fire tolerance (e.g.,
Fig. 13.2; Boisvert-Marsh et al., 2020), may prove useful in guiding future species
selection for a given ecosystem.
13.3 Examples and Outcomes of Adaptation in Temperate
and Boreal Ecosystems
The fast pace of climate change is particularly challenging because of the long lag
between the evaluation of an adaptation strategy through field observations and the
ability to recommend and implement the strategy at a broad scale (Biggs et al., 2009,
2020). As a result, decisions surrounding the regional deployment of adaptation
strategies are most often based on simulation studies of future landscape dynamics
under different management regimes and climate conditions (Duveneck & Scheller,
2015; Dymond et al., 2014; Hof et al., 2017). Numerous studies applying landscape
simulation and forest planning models (e.g., LANDIS-II) have demonstrated the
potential for recommended strategies. For example, the broad-scale deployment of
mixed-species plantings increased the resilience of biomass stocks and volume flows
in temperate and boreal systems (Duveneck & Scheller, 2015; Dymond et al., 2014,
2020). Nevertheless, a key limitation of simulation modeling, as it relates to oper-
ationalizing any given practice, is the inability to fully capture uncertainties in the
future social acceptance of an approach (Seidl & Lexer, 2013), including from forest
managers (Hengst-Ehrhart, 2019; Sousa-Silva et al., 2018). Therefore, it remains
critical to support these model outcomes with field-based applications that include
managers and broader societal perspectives.
As an alternative to model simulations, numerous studies have used dendrochrono-
logical techniques to retrospectively evaluate the ability of adaptation strategies
13 Building a Framework for Adaptive Silviculture 369
Fig. 13.2 Groupings of species from eastern Canada having similar sensitivities and responses to
drought (left blue column), migration (center green column ), and fire (right brown column)onthe
basis of functional traits. Average tolerance and sensitivity are denoted by blue (tolerance) and red
(sensitivity) symbols; larger symbols indicate more extreme values. A lack of a symbol indicates
intermediate values or the lack of a clear trend. Modified from Boisvert-Marsh et al. (2020), CC
BY license
to confer resilience to stressors and climate extremes (e.g., severe drought). This
research approach has confirmed the utility of commonly applied silvicultural treat-
ments, such as thinning for density management (Bottero et al., 2017; D’Amato
et al. 2013; Sohn et al., 2016) and mixed-species management (Bauhus et al., 2017;
Drobyshev et al., 2013; Metz et al., 2016; Vitali et al., 2018) at promoting resis-
tance and resilience to past drought events and insect outbreaks. Additionally, retro-
spective work examining the drought sensitivity of white spruce (Picea glauca)
within common garden experiments in Québec, Canada, demonstrated the poten-
tial for deploying planting stock from drier locales to enhance the resilience to
370 A. W. D’Amato et al.
drought in boreal systems (Depardieu et al., 2020). These studies have collectively
affirmed potential strategies suggested for addressing global change (Park et al.,
2014). However, such studies are limited in their ability to address novel, future
climate and socioecological conditions that have no historical analog.
Over the past decades, there has been a proliferation of adaptation silviculture
experiments and demonstrations in North America to address the need for forward
thinking, field-based adaptation silviculture. These studies follow from the legacy of
numerous, large-scale, operational ecological silviculture experiments established in
boreal and temperate regions during the 1990s and 2000s (e.g., Brais et al., 2004;
Hyvärinen et al., 2005; Seymour et al., 2006; Spence & Volney, 1999). The greatest
concentration of these studies has been in the Great Lakes and northeastern regions
of the United States largely through the efforts of the Climate Change Response
Framework (Fig. 13.3; Janowiak et al., 2014).
Syntheses of the applied adaptation strategies in a subset of demonstrations in
this network underscore the influence of current forest conditions and prevailing
management objectives on how climate adaptation is currently integrated into silvi-
cultural prescriptions (Ontl et al., 2018). For example, in northern temperate and
boreal regions of the network where intensive, historical land use has generated rela-
tively homogeneous forest conditions (Schulte et al., 2007), adaptation strategies
Fig. 13.3 Silvicultural experiments and demonstration areas evaluating various silvicultural adap-
tation strategies in the midwestern and northeastern United States as part of the Climate Change
Response Framework (Janowiak et al., 2014). Since 2009, over 200 adaptation demonstrations have
been established as part of this network, serving as early examples of how adaptation strategies can
be operationalized across diverse forest conditions and ownership. Each area is designed with input
from manager partners (i.e., co-produced) to ensure relevance to local ecological and operational
contexts. Map obtained with permission from the Northern Institute of Applied Climate Science
(NIACS)
13 Building a Framework for Adaptive Silviculture 371
have largely focused on increasing the diversity of canopy-tree species and the struc-
tural complexity of these forests (Ontl et al., 2018). In contrast, adaptation strategies
in fire-adapted forests in the temperate region largely focus on the restoration of
woodland structures and the introduction of prescribed fires (Ontl et al., 2018)to
counter the long-standing outcomes of fire exclusion, e.g., higher tree densities and
a greater abundance of mesophytic species (Hanberry et al., 2014). Overall, most
adaptation strategies used by managers to date are best categorized as resilience
approaches, highlighting a general reluctance to accept the initial risks and costs of
more experimental transition strategies, a sentiment reflected in surveys of forest
managers in other portions of the United States (Scheller & Parajuli, 2018) and
Europe (Sousa-Silva et al., 2018).
The above summary highlights that many adaptation strategies will likely build
off prevailing silvicultural approaches in a region, particularly in the near term. Some
regions, such as boreal Canada, in which silvicultural systems rely heavily on artificial
regeneration—either as part of plantation systems or as a supplement to natural
regeneration—will have much greater capacity to implement resilience and transition
strategies that rely on artificial regeneration than regions having historically relied
solely on natural regeneration (Pedlar et al., 2012). Nonetheless for the boreal region
and other regions, operationalizing novel transition strategies is not only hampered
by a lack of experience but also by a limited nursery infrastructure and breeding
programs. These programs would allow for species and genotypic selection to match
projected climate and disturbance conditions for a given location (cf. O’Neill et al.
2017) and produce sufficient quantities to influence practices widely.
In many cases, the trigger for a more widespread application of novel adaptation
strategies will likely be the realization that forest conditions are rapidly advancing
toward undesirable thresholds because of changing climate, invasive species, and
altered disturbance regimes. For instance, a fairly rapid shift toward applying tran-
sition strategies is underway in the Northern Lake States region in response to the
threat to native black ash (Fraxinus nigra) wetlands from the introduced emerald
ash borer (Rissman et al., 2018). The emerald ash borer is moving into the region
in response to warming winters, and the habitat for native trees able to potentially
replace black ash is rapidly declining because of climate change. In this example,
novel enrichment plantings of climate-adapted, non-host species are being used as
part of silvicultural treatments aimed at diversifying areas currently dominated by
the host species and thus sustain post-invasion ecosystem functions (D’Amato et al.,
2018).
13.4 Landscape and Regional Allocation of Adaptation
Strategies
In addition to regional variation in the application of stand-scale adaptation strate-
gies, within-region variation in ownership, management objectives, and the ability
372 A. W. D’Amato et al.
to absorb risks associated with experimental adaptation strategies may require
landscape-level zonation into different intensities of adaptation (Park et al., 2014).
The landscape is an important scale for adaptation planning because (1) major ecolog-
ical processes such as metapopulation dynamics, species migration, and many natural
disturbances occur at this scale; (2) forest habitat loss and fragmentation can only
be addressed at large spatial scales; and (3) forest planning, including annual allow-
able harvest calculations, is multifaceted and depends on a variety of premises of
current and targeted biophysical states as well as land ownership, policy, decision
mandates, and governance mechanisms operating at the landscape scale. Correspond-
ingly, the zonation of landscapes and regions into different silvicultural regimes has
long been advocated as a strategy to achieve a diversity of objectives across owner-
ships (Seymour & Hunter, 1992; Tappeiner et al., 1986). In terms of application,
zoning approaches are especially suitable to large areas under single ownership and
characterized by low population densities (Sarr & Puettmann, 2008), such as for
many boreal regions.
In most regions, including the boreal portions of Canada and Europe, zona-
tion approaches have been motivated by potential incongruities between histor-
ical, commodity-focused objectives and those focused on broader nontimber objec-
tives, including the maintenance of native biodiversity and cultural values (Côté
et al., 2010; Messier et al., 2009; Naumov et al., 2018). Within the context of
these often conflicting objectives, the TRIAD zonation model (Seymour & Hunter,
1992), has been popularized in parts of boreal Canada as a potential strategy for
achieving diverse objectives over large landholdings. With this approach, landscapes
are generally divided into intensive regions, characterized by high-input, production-
focused silviculture (e.g., plantations), and extensive regions, where less-intensive
approaches, such as ecological silviculture (sensu Palik et al., 2020), are used to
attain nontimber objectives (e.g., biodiversity conservation, aesthetics) while also
providing an opportunity for timber production (Fig. 13.4a). The third component
of the TRIAD model—unmanaged, ecological reserves—are designated to protect
unique ecological and cultural resources, enhance landscape connectivity, and serve
as natural benchmarks to inform ecosystem management practices in extensively
managed areas (Montigny & MacLean, 2005).
With its associated varying levels of silvicultural intensity and investment, the
TRIAD zonation model is a useful construct for considering the opportunities and
constraints to operationalizing adaptation strategies across large portions of the boreal
forest (Park et al., 2014). For instance, high-input adaptation strategies, such as estab-
lishing future-adapted plantations, may be restricted to areas where intensive silvi-
cultural regimes have predominated historically, such as lands proximate to mills.
For instance, in western Canada, climate-informed reforestation strategies are most
successful at minimizing drought-related reductions in timber volumes when resis-
tant species and genotypes are planted proximate to mills and transportation routes, as
opposed to more extensive planting approaches (Lochhead et al., 2019). In contrast,
the financial and access constraints of extensively managed areas and the increasing
risks of severe disturbance impacts (Boucher et al., 2017) argue for the use of a
portfolio approach in these areas; this portfolio includes lower input resilience and
13 Building a Framework for Adaptive Silviculture 373
Fig. 13.4 (top) Forested landscape delineated according to TRIAD zonation (Seymour & Hunter,
1992), having zones of intensive production (white polygons), ecological reserves (dark green
polygons), and extensive management in between. Shades of green within the extensive manage-
ment zone indicate varying application levels of ecological silviculture (based on Palik et al.,
2020). (bottom) Application of strategic, future-adapted planting across management intensities to
generate functionally complex landscapes (sensu Messier et al., 2019); tree size depicts the level
of deployed novel planting strategies, with intensive zones serving as central nodes of adaptation.
Solid lines denote the functional connections between landscape elements, having similar response
traits in planted species. Dashed lines represent long-term connections developed within unman-
aged reserves, where no planting has occurred, because of the long-term colonization of the areas
by future-adapted species planted in other portions of the landscape
higher input transition strategies that build from ecological silvicultural s trategies,
e.g., natural disturbance-based silvicultural systems, attributed to extensive zones
under the TRIAD model (D’Amato & Palik, 2021). A key difference from the histor-
ical application of ecological silviculture is the integration of the targeted planting
of future-adapted species—as enrichment plantings in actively managed stands or
374 A. W. D’Amato et al.
after natural disturbances—to increase functional diversity over time (Halofsky et al.,
2020).
The TRIAD approach, as initially conceived, focused mainly on maximizing
within-zone function to balance regional wood production and biodiversity conser-
vation goals within a regional landscape (Seymour & Hunter, 1992). The emphasis of
adaptation silviculture on enhancing potential recovery mechanisms and distributing
risk has placed greater focus on cross-scale, functional interactions between zones
when allocating adaptation strategies (Craven et al., 2016; Gömöry et al., 2020;
Messier et al., 2019). In particular, a critical aspect of adaptation zonation is the
strategic deployment of approaches, such as mixed-species plantations or enrichment
plantings, to functionally link forest stands across a landscape (Fig. 13.4b; Aquilué
et al., 2020; Messier et al., 2019). Guiding these recommendations is a recogni-
tion of the importance of greater levels of functional complexity at multiple scales
to generate landscape-level resilience to disturbances and climate change (Messier
et al., 2019). This includes enhancing levels of functional connectivity across land-
scape elements to facilitate species migration and recovery from disturbance (Millar
et al., 2007; Nuñez et al., 2013) and designating central stands or nodes (sensu Craven
et al., 2016) to serve as regional source populations for future-adapted species and
key functional traits (Fig. 13.4b). Although still largely conceptual, future assess-
ments of landscape-level functional connectivity and diversity (Craven et al., 2016)
may be useful for prioritizing locations where more risk-laden adaptation strategies,
such as novel species plantings, should occur in a given region (Aquilué et al., 2020).
Note, however, that the risks associated with these strategies include not only finan-
cial and production losses due to maladaptation of planted species or genotypes but
also potential negative impacts on forest-dependent wildlife species. Therefore, it
becomes increasingly critical to identify strategies that maximize future adaptation
potential while minimizing negative impacts on the functions and biota associated
with ecological reserves and other portions of the landscape (cf. Tittler et al., 2015).
13.5 Conclusions
The application of silviculture has always assumed a level of uncertainty and risk in
terms of ecological outcomes and socioeconomic feasibility and acceptability (Palik
et al., 2020). Despite this uncertainty and risk, traditional silviculture approaches,
after centuries of implementation, are well supported by long-term experience and
research in many regions in the world. In contrast, in the context of rapid and novel
global change, including climate, forest loss, disturbance, and invasive species, there
is now an urgency to expand silviculture strategies to include high-risk experimental
approaches, even if they are not well supported by long-term experience and research.
Moreover, these approaches can still rely on the same framework for addressing
uncertainty and risk that foresters have always used and understood (Palik et al.,
2020). Given general aversions to risk, most field applications of adaptation strate-
gies to date have built on past experiences and existing silvicultural practices; these
13 Building a Framework for Adaptive Silviculture 375
include applying intermediate treatments to build resistance to change and ecolog-
ical silvicultural practices to increase resilience. Although modeling exercises are
useful for exploring responses to novel experimental strategies, like assisted migra-
tion, field experience with these approaches is currently limited, particularly at the
operational scale. Given these challenges, we identify the following key needs to
advance adaptation silviculture into widespread practice in forest landscapes:
• Integration of geospatial databases with disturbance and climate models to
increase the spatial resolution of regional vulnerability assessments and allow
a site-level determination of urgency and the appropriateness of adaptation
strategies
• Improvement of existing modeling frameworks to better account for novel species
interactions and potential feedbacks between future socioeconomic and ecological
dynamics and adaptation practices over time
• Strategic i nvestment in operational-scale adaptation experiments and demon-
strations across regions, ecosystems, and site conditions, including high-risk
strategies
• Coordination of the abovementioned experiments, trials, and demonstrations to
allow for rapid information sharing among stakeholders and the adjustment of
practices in response to observed outcomes and changing environmental dynamics
• Regional assessments of nursery capacity and novel stock availability in the
context of adaptation plantings to prioritize investment in the propagation and
wide distribution of desirable species and genotypes
• Continued development of trait-based indices to assist with operationalizing
adaptation strategies focused on enhancing functional complexity across scales
• Consideration of relevant scales for the provision of ecosystem services to provide
flexibility when applying adaptation strategies
Global change and its impacts appear to be greatly outpacing adaptation science,
and investments in infrastructure must adapt. However, working to prioritize these
scientific needs and investments, including deploying adaptation strategies in the
near term that are compatible with current management frameworks, is critical to
avoid crossing undesirable ecological thresholds. Seeing these rapidly approaching
thresholds should serve as the primary motivating factor for moving forward with
widespread adaptation to ensure the long-term sustainable production of goods and
services.
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