"REASONING"
DROUGHT RESILIENCE AND ECOLOGICAL VALUE OF PLANTED DOUGLAS FIR, NORWAY SPRUCE, AND SILVER FIR CONIFERS IN THE FACE OF CLIMATE CHANGE"

Climate change is today a reality and forests worldwide have started to register worrisome decline
and mortality rates following drought and heat waves. Forests cover 30% of the terrestrial area
providing local, regional, and global key ecosystem services, their health being thus of uppermost
importance for nature and human society. Forests of the future need to continue to provide such
services, concurrently satisfying the human society needs in a sustainable way. Thus, there is a
whole debate on what should be done to promote these drought-resistant and productive desired
forests. Planting non-native species (i.e., fast-growing and drought-resistant in their natural habitats),
seemed to be one solution. Still, studies have shown that although introducing them might be
valuable on short- to mid-term, on the long-term their ecological impact might actually be adverse,
especially when it comes to mitigate climate change. Douglas fir (North American native) was
introduced in Europe ≈150 years ago and in Romania ≈130 years ago. Since then, it has been largely
studied in Europe, but in Romania, to the best of our knowledge, there are no publications
combining ecological and genetic data of Douglas fir plantations. The REASONING project seeks to
cover this knowledge gap by comparing growth, drought resilience, and ecosystem services provided
by Douglas fir with respect to Norway spruce, and Silver fir in Romania. Specifically, the objectives
are to: (1) study the historical growth rates (tree-rings) of the 3 conifer species deepening into their
growth performance and responses to droughts; (2) study their provenances and genetic diversity
deepening into their fate considering climate change; (3) study this plantations' understory, as their
ecological impact on plant diversity has been little explored so far; (4) evaluate the ecosystem
services they provide to nature and human society (i.e., C sequestration, biomass), a novel approach
for such plantations.