[PCA] 2017 ARTICLE: Matching seed to site by climate similarity: Techniques to prioritize plant materials development and use in restoration

[De Angelis, Patricia]

New article just out, describing a tool to predict seed zones.

Doherty, K. D., B.J. Butterfield, and T.E. Wood. 2017. Matching seed to
site by climate similarity: Techniques to prioritize plant materials
development and use in restoration. Ecol Appl. Accepted Author Manuscript.
doi:10.1002/eap.1505

ABSTRACT:

Land management agencies are increasing the use of native plant materials
for vegetation treatments to restore ecosystem function and maintain
natural ecological integrity. This shift towards the use of natives has
highlighted a need to increase the diversity of materials available. A key
problem is agreeing on how many, and which, new accessions should be
developed. Here we describe new methods that address this problem. Our
methods use climate data to calculate a climate similarity index between
two points in a defined extent. This index can be used to predict relative
performance of available accessions at a target site. In addition, the
index can be used in combination with standard cluster analysis algorithms
to quantify and maximize climate coverage (mean climate similarity), given
a modeled range extent and a specified number of accessions. We demonstrate
the utility of this latter feature by applying it to the extents of 11
Western North American species with proven or potential use in restoration.
First, a species-specific seed transfer map can be readily generated for a
species by predicting performance for accessions currently available; this
map can be readily updated to accommodate new accessions. Next, the
increase in climate coverage achieved by adding successive accessions can
be explored, yielding information that managers can use to balance ecologic
and economic considerations in determining how many accessions to develop.
This approach identifies sampling sites, referred to as climate centers,
which contribute unique, complementary climate coverage to accessions on
hand, thus providing explicit sampling guidance for both germplasm
preservation and research. We examine how these, and other, features of our
approach add to existing methods used to guide plant materials development
and use. Finally, we discuss how these new methods provide a framework that
could be used to coordinate native plant materials development, evaluation,
and use across agencies, regions, and research groups.

LINK:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/eap.1505/full
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