Publications by authors named "Miriam Isaac-Renton"

As northern latitudes experience rapid winter warming, there is an urgent need to assess the effect of varying winter conditions on tree growth and forest carbon sequestration potential. We examined tree growth responses to variability in cold-season (November–April) frequency of freeze days (FFD) over 1951 to 2018 using tree-ring data from 35,217 trees and 57 species at 4,375 sites distributed across Canada. We found that annual radial growth responses to FFD varied by species, with some commonalities across genera and clades.

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Northern forests at the leading edge of their distributions may not show increased primary productivity under climate warming, being limited by climatic extremes such as drought. Looking beyond tree growth to underlying physiological mechanisms is fundamental for accurate predictions of forest responses to climate warming and drought stress. Within a 32-year genetic field trial, we analyze relative contributions of xylem plasticity and inferred stomatal response to drought tolerance in regional populations of a widespread conifer.

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With lengthening growing seasons but increased temperature variability under climate change, frost damage to plants may remain a risk and could be exacerbated by poleward planting of warm-adapted seed sources. Here, we study cold adaptation of tree populations in a wide-ranging coniferous species in western North America to inform limits to seed transfer. Using tree-ring signatures of cold damage from common garden trials designed to study genetic population differentiation, we find opposing geographic clines for spring frost and fall frost damage.

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Choosing drought-tolerant planting stock in reforestation programs may help adapt forests to climate change. To inform such reforestation strategies, we test lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta Doug. ex Loud.

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We evaluate genetic test plantations of North American Douglas-fir provenances in Europe to quantify how tree populations respond when subjected to climate regime shifts, and we examined whether bioclimate envelope models developed for North America to guide assisted migration under climate change can retrospectively predict the success of these provenance transfers to Europe. The meta-analysis is based on long-term growth data of 2800 provenances transferred to 120 European test sites. The model was generally well suited to predict the best performing provenances along north-south gradients in Western Europe, but failed to predict superior performance of coastal North American populations under continental climate conditions in Eastern Europe.

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