Managing forests under climate change requires adaptation. The adaptive capacity of forest tree populations is huge but not limitless. Integrating evolutionary considerations into adaptive forestry practice will enhance the capacity of managed forests to respond to climate-driven changes. & Aims Focusing on natural regeneration systems, we propose a general framework that can be used in various and complex local situations by forest managers, in combination with their own expertise, to integrate evolutionary considerations into decision making for the emergence of an evolution-oriented forestry. & Methods We develop a simple process-based analytical grid, using few processes and parameters, to analyse the impact of forestry practice on the evolution and evolvability of tree populations. & Results We review qualitative and, whenever possible, quantitative expectations on the intensity of evolutionary drivers in forest trees. Then, we review the effects of actual and potential forestry practice on the evolutionary processes. We illustrate the complexity of interactions in two study cases: the evolutionary consequences for forest trees of biotic interactions and of highly heterogeneous environment. & Conclusion Evolution-oriented forestry may contribute adapting forests to climate change. It requires combining short-term and long-term objectives. We propose future lines of research and experimentation.
The relationships that control seed production in trees are fundamental to understanding the evolution of forest species and their capacity to recover from increasing losses to drought, fire, and harvest. A synthesis of fecundity data from 714 species worldwide allowed us to examine hypotheses that are central to quantifying reproduction, a foundation for assessing fitness in forest trees. Four major findings emerged. First, seed production is not constrained by a strict trade-off between seed size and numbers. Instead, seed numbers vary over ten orders of magnitude, with species that invest in large seeds producing more seeds than expected from the 1:1 trade-off. Second, gymnosperms have lower seed production than angiosperms, potentially due to their extra investments in protective woody cones. Third, nutrient-demanding species, indicated by high foliar phosphorus concentrations, have low seed production. Finally, sensitivity of individual species to soil fertility varies widely, limiting the response of community seed production to fertility gradients. In combination, these findings can inform models of forest response that need to incorporate reproductive potential.
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