Team : Sureau

Project manager : 

Partners :

Presentation

Global warming is profoundly disrupting the productivity and stability of forest ecosystems. The capacity of tree species to acclimatize to these changes is a key mechanism that should help guide foresters in selecting species suited to future conditions. However, this acclimatization capacity is not yet incorporated into the silvicultural decision-support tools currently available. The aim of this exploratory project is to evaluate a new decision-making tool that explicitly accounts for the ability of tree species to acclimatize to climate change. This innovative approach is based on characterizing the phenotypic plasticity of key physiological traits involved in tree resistance to climatic extremes (droughts and heat waves). Measurements will be conducted in situ along a climatic gradient in the AURA region to establish reference relationships between these traits and environmental variables. This plasticity will then be integrated into a model to produce maps of the growth and survival potential of selected species across the AURA region.

Installation of cedar branches in a drought box. Source : C. Barillet 2025.

The DroughtBox: A new tool for phenotyping residual branch conductance and its temperature dependence during drought, Billon at al., 2020.

Cross-section of a cedar segment produced using X-ray tomography. Source : P. Conchon 2025.

Partners

UMR PIAF, EIP-Agri, Région AURA, ONF, CNPF AURA