Progress 06/01/24 to 05/31/25
Outputs
Target Audience:Target audiences reached by my efforts include: forest geneticists and conservation managers from the US, Canada, and Mexico present at the North American Forest Genetics Society meeting in Oaxaca, Mexico in June 2024, along with any forest managers/decision makers they interacted with forest landowners and land managers in the state of Pennsylvania through participation in the biannual Forest Landowner Conference at Penn State University in March 2025 as a presenter and participation in the "Keeping Penn's Woods Healthy" workshop in October 2024 as a presenter in collaboration with the Northern Institute for Applied Climate Science Changes/Problems:The timeline for this project has shifted - while originally proposed to end May 31st, 2025, the grant has been extended (No-Cost Extension) to end on May 31st, 2026. The reason for this extension is to allow for publication of all three journal articles as well as attendance of two conferences to present findings. Funding was used to attend the North American Forest Genetics Society conference in 2024, which was not one of the originally proposed conferences. Attendance of this event allowed for the presentation and discussion of emerging results with an expert audience in a timely fashion for project development, as well as networking surrounding the project with a unique audience of forest genetics experts from across the United States as well as two other countries. An abstract has been accepted for a presentation at the 2025 Ecological Society of America meeting. This is a later year than originally proposed and allows for the presentation of a completed dataset for objectives 1&2 and analyses through fall 2024. Research objectives originally emphasized underlying geology as a potential driver for differences in species survival and growth. In addressing objectives 1 & 2, we have found that individual soil macro and micronutrients were a stronger predictor of trends in survival/growth for most of the study species than underlying geology alone. Publicationswill therefore focus more on the impact of "soil nutrient profiles" than "bedrock" as potential explanatory variables for success of study species. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Three undergraduate student participated in collection and processing of soil samples, measurement of physiological variables during the summer field season and measurements of survival/growth variables during the fall. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Results were presented at three different conferences/events: the North American Forest Genetics Society meeting in June 2024 in Oaxaca, Mexico, the "Keeping Penn's Woods Healthy" workshop in October 2024 and the Forest Landowner Conference in March 2025 at Penn State University. The first conference reached an audience of forest geneticists, ecophysiologists and conservation managers from the US, Canada, and Mexico. The Forest Landowner Conference and "Keeping Penn's Woods Healthy" workshops reached landowners state-wide, as well as local and state forest management individuals and students. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?Objective 1: Quantify survivorship and growth of native and incoming species on shale and sandstone bedrock I plan to publish research results on survivorship and growth as related to site and soil variables as well as climate adaptation strategy. I will present the results of this work at the Ecological Society of America meeting in August 2025. Objective 2: Analyze soil, root, and leaf samples to determine nutrient availability to plants on both bedrock types Same as objective 1. Objective 3: Determine how physiological characteristics of plants change with site and genes/pathways involved with the development of these characteristics. I will conduct statistical analysis on physiological data collected on individuals of three species (northern red oak, sugar maple, and sweetgum), from June 2024-August 2024 as detailed above, and publish the results. Additionally, I will complete ongoing analysis of gene expression data from four oak species (black oak, northern red oak, southern red oak, and white oak), and aim to publish in New Phytologist. I will present these results at the Forest Genetics Conference in June 2025 at Penn State University.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Objective 1: Quantify survivorship and growth of native and incoming species on shale and sandstone bedrock Survival, height and diameter measurements were taken on all seedlings at all planting sites in November 2024, marking the completion of the dataset used in analysis of trends in survival and growth. Statistical analyses were performed to assess trends in survival and growth by species, by climate adaptation strategy, by underlying geology and soil characteristics, as well as by year and season. A publication detailing these results has been drafted and is being edited for submission for publication with target journal Forest Ecology and Management. Objective 2: Analyze soil, root, and leaf samples to determine nutrient availability to plants on both bedrock types Soil, organic matter and leaf litter samples collected in May 2024 were processed in June 2024, including drying, sieving/crushing to appropriate size, and submission to the local Penn State Agricultural Analytical Lab to test for composition of several key soil macro and micronutrients along with other key soil characteristics. Statistical analyses were performed on the results and are included in the draft publication mentioned above. Objective 3: Determine how physiological characteristics of plants change with site and genes/pathways involved with the development of these characteristics. A two-month long field season was conducted from mid-June to mid-August 2024, during which stomatal conductance, soil moisture, temperature and humidity were measured across a drought period. The goal of these measurements wasto evaluate the effectiveness of sites overlying different geologies in supporting seedlings through drought stress, which is projected to increase under future climate conditions. Leaves were harvested, weighed, scanned, and sent for isotope analysis at the Central Appalachian Stable Isotope Facility. Gene expression data collected from black oak seedling leaves were sequenced at the Genomics Core Facility at Penn State and added to the transcriptomics dataset. Preliminary analyses of gene expression by site were completed and are in discussion with collaborators currently.
Publications
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Progress 06/01/23 to 05/31/24
Outputs
Target Audience:The target audience for the project over the past year has included nursery professionals, state and national forestry agencies, and small to medium sized nonprofit organizations, reached through publication in the "Tree Planter Notes" after the Northeast and Southern Forest and Conservation Association Nursery Meeting in July 2023. Another audience for this work has been ecologists, particularly students and young professionals in ecology, and professors attending professional ecology conferences. This work was presented at the department scale, at the college level, and to a university audience in poster format, as well as at a regional Ecological Society of America (ESA) conference in March-April 2024. Changes/Problems:Objective 2: Additional soil parameters were quantified at each site, including adding a second depth (10-20 cm) in order to evaluate nutrients available to tree roots, and sampling the O horizon to identify nutrients at the soil surface. Measures of soil moisture and texture were also collected. Leaf sampling in 2022 was inconclusive - due to the small size of seedling leaves compared to the required weight for micronutrient processing methods, leaves from individual trees could not be processed separately and had to be pooled by site, reducing the sample size below the required levels for reasonable statistical conclusions. In 2024, leaves will be collected from sample sweetgum trees, and, if large enough, processed to evaluate nutrient content differences by site. Objective 3: Focus has shifted from collecting additional transcriptomic samples in July 2023 to expanding the sequenced dataset from leaf samples collected in 2021. This is due to inconsistent mortality across sites for northern red oak, with some sites having a high enough sample size remaining for comparison, while other sites have only 1-2 remaining seedlings. Mortality is likely a reflection both of treatment differences, and of the fragility of seedlings. Focusing on understanding gene expression in the first season, therefore, may provide hints as to what conditions favored/stressed the seedlings. Sequencing in 2024 will consist of 16 samples from an additional species (black oak) collected in the 2021 season and frozen at -80 until processing, as well as adding four additional samples to genetic data sequenced in 2021. These challenges reflect the difficulties in working with tree seedlings, whose survival strategy is often to produce in large numbers with the hopes that a small subset survive to adulthood. Physiological sampling will consist of the same three parameters (stomatal conductance, water use efficiency, and leaf mass per area), but be focused on two main species, sweetgum, and northern red oak, measured across two underlying geologies. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Four undergraduate students associated with the Kaye Forest Dynamics Lab Group have visited the field sites and been able to participate in data collection and discussion of field results. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?The project director has participated in one presentation at the department level, two poster sessions at the university level (one targeting the College of Agriculture and the other open to a general audience), and a poster session at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Ecological Society of America communicating preliminary project results. An abstract has been submitted and accepted for a poster presentation at the North American Forest Genetics Symposium (NAFGS) in Oaxaca, Mexico, in June, which is expected to bring together forest genetics researchers from the US, Canada, and Mexico. Information about establishing project sites, and tools available to a general landowner audience was presented to the Northeast and southern forest and conservation association nursery meeting on July 18,2024, along with a field site visit two days later on July 20, 2024 state and national forest resource professionals. Material presented at that conference has been written out and will be published in the Tree Planters' Notes spring 2024 (see publications above). Dissemination of project information online has begun with creation of a project website, and distribution of the link to that website on signs located at each research site. Finally, the project director is finalizing registration of the research sites with the Climate Change Response Framework (CCRF) as a part of their climate adapted demonstration site network. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?Objective 1: Survivorship and growth data all seedlings will be quality-controlled. Models will be generated to describe trends in survivorship and growth based on species, site geology, and climate-adaptation strategy. Objective 2: Soil data from the updated collection in 2022 will be incorporated into models estimating survivorship and growth. Multivariate analyses, such as principle component analysis, will be used to separate out the effects of individual soil elements on survival, growth, and leaf physiology/gene expression. Objective 3: A second summer of leaf physiology data will be collected from mid-June to mid-August. At each sampling point, a leaf stomatal conductance will be paired with soil moisture, and evaluated in the context of seasonality. Differences in species response to seasonal patterns by bedrock will be evaluated. At the end of the season, leaves will be harvested for assessment of leaf mass to area ratio, and then sent off for evaluation of carbon isotope concentrations and calculation of seasonal water use efficiency. These variables will explain both how the seedlings respond to drought stress, and how that response is impacted by underlying soil conditions. As the project wraps up within the next year, a major goal will be to generate models that describe the connection of observed survivorship, growth, genetic expression, and physiological response with underlying site geology. Data generated will be described in the publication of three manuscripts, and datasets/code will be made publicly available where possible.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Objective 1: Seedling height, diameter, and survival for 1700 seedlings were collected across all six research plots at two different time points. This concludes a three year dataset of fall and spring survival and growth data for seedlings planted in 2021, and all of the subsequent replantings at the research sites. Objective 2: In-depth soil sampling was conducted in May 2024. 6 soil cores were taken at two depths (0-10 and 10-20 cm) to measure soil nutrient content. Objective 3: 30 oak leaf tissue samples were submitted for sequencing. These include 4 additional samples from northern red oak, southern red oak, and white oak to complement data collected in August 2021 on differential gene expression at two sites on different bedrocks. An additional 16 individuals (8 from each site) for a new species, black oak, were added to complete the dataset. A first year of leaf physiology data was collected on a set of 72 leaf samples from two species, northern red oak and southern red oak in August 2023. Stomatal conductance was sampled repeatedly throughout the month, followed by harvesting, measurement of leaf mass/area ratios, and submission of leaf samples for carbon isotope analysis.
Publications
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Awaiting Publication
Year Published:
2024
Citation:
Alving, D. and Kaye, M. Designing Small-Scale Climate-Adapted Forests - Takeaways from a Student Climate Adapted Forest Experimental Setup. Tree Planters Notes, 67(1)
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