Performing Department
(N/A)
Non Technical Summary
Spruce-fir forests are widely recognized as one of the most at-risk forest types in the northeastern US due to their sensitivity and exposure to climate change. The coast of Maine has historically served as a climate macrorefugia for spruce forests. However, extreme ocean warming, rising inland temperatures, and increasingly variable precipitation strongly suggest that major declines in coastal spruce forests may be imminent. Unfortunately, we havelittle knowledge about how these spruce forests will change and the impacts on forest ecosystem services. The overall objective of this proposal is to identify the factors that promote coastal spruce forests, assess the risks posed by climate change, and develop tools to manage for resilience. Our central hypothesis is that rapid climate warming makes coastal spruce ecosystems extremely vulnerable to climate change due to the species' requirement for cool moist conditions, low tree species diversity, and the region'slimited active management. We will achieve this objective by 1) identifying the factors driving recent and current trends in coastal spruce distributions, 2) quantifying coastal spruce forest dynamics and sensitivity to climate stressors, and 3) identifying how climate reduces spruce germination, establishment, growth, and survival. We have brought together nine top conservation organizations from coastal Maine in this multidisciplinary project to coproduce these research objectives. We will produce the first fine-scale maps of the current distribution of coastal spruce forests including potential locations for conservation, management, and restoration as well as generate new data on stand dynamics and climate sensitivity to inform local management and conservation decisions. Our diverse research team allows us to bridge scales from leaf to landscape, making us uniquely positioned to improve management and conservation of this threatened ecosystem.
Animal Health Component
0%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
60%
Applied
30%
Developmental
10%
Goals / Objectives
The overall objective of this proposal is to identify the factors that promote coastal spruce forests, assess the risks posed by climate change, and develop tools to manage for resilience. We will achieve this objective by 1) identifying the factors driving recent and current trends in coastal spruce distributions, 2) quantifying coastal spruce forest dynamics and sensitivity to climate stressors, and 3) identifying how climate reduces spruce germination, establishment, growth, and survival.
Project Methods
This project employs a multi-scale approach to achieve our three project objectives.The first objective is to identify the factors driving recent and current trends in coastal spruce distribution. This objective covers the entire coast of Maine and focuses on remote sensing of forest distributions, disturbance, and stress. We will create a regional-scale map of the current distribution of coastal spruce forest in Maine that will be combined with annual maps of disturbance showing trends in forest change over the satellite record (1980s to present). The regional distribution map will consist of wall-to-wall estimates of the fractional (%) cover of coastal spruce forest within each 30 m grid cell across the coast of Maine that is calibrated to ground plot measurements. We will also quantify disturbance metrics (Landsat detected changes in forest cover using LandTrendr) including year, magnitude, and recovery since 1984 for the entire region to determine how disturbance patterns vary by land ownership, geography, and conservation status. Finally, we will leverage new satellite-based remotely sensed data on ecophysiological stress (ECOSTRESS) and traditional metrics of greenness (NDVI) to identify the environmental conditions and landscape positions that may be indicative of future declines in coastal spruce populations.The second objective is to quantify coastal spruce forest dynamics and sensitivity to climate stressors. This work will focus on the forest stand scale in 24 stands along the coast of Maine. The stands will cover a range of canopy structure. In each stand we will establish 50x50m fixed plots to survey canopy trees, saplings, seedlings, coarse woody material, microclimate, and tree growth. These data will be used to determine the stand dynamics of these coastal spruce ecosystems and guide our ecologically informed management guidelines. The tree cores will also be used to determine tree-growth sensitivity to climate and how that sensitivity depends on the location along the coast, tree age, and tree canopy position.Finally, the third objective is to understand how climate limits spruce germination, establishment, growth, and survival. This will be accomplished by setting up experimental plantings at 10 locations along the coast and inland. At each location, we will have varying shade conditions (forest understory, open field) and herbivory (fenced and unfenced) plots. In each plot we will plant saplings and sow seeds of ten different tree species and monitor climate conditions. We will determine the primary factors that create the microclimate conditions that are favorable for germination and establishment of the ten tree species. We will also track longer-term survival and growth of the saplings of spruce and these competing trees.Efforts: To drive changes in knowledge, actions, and conditions we will pursue the following efforts:Conducting cross-scale multidisciplinary researchGuiding graduate student research projectsEngaging stakeholders in project design and executionLeading a workshop and field tourPresentations at national, regional, and local conferencesEvaluation: We will assess the success of our project through the following evaluations and metrics:Progress by graduate students on theses and dissertationsPeer-reviewed publications, management guidelines, and public presentations by our research teamNumber of attendees at our workshop, field tour, and panel discussionSoliciting feedback from our key stakeholders during annual meetings on the extent to which the project is meeting their needs and expectations