Climate change affects the ability of forests to host biodiversity and provide Nature’s Contributions to People (NCPs, such as wood or watershed regulation) and biodiversity. The adaptation and resilience of future forest socio-ecosystems depend on forest regeneration, i.e. the natural or artificial re-establishment of trees after natural disturbances or harvesting. Regeneration pathways are influenced by both ecological processes and management choices, which should reflect societal preferences and values as well as governance contexts. It remains unclear how regeneration pathways will function in a context of ongoing climate change, how we can manage them to promote forest adaptation while preserving biodiversity, soils and NCPs, and how regeneration can be governed. This focal project will address these knowledge gaps. The main objectives are: (i) to improve our understanding of forest regeneration (ecological and genetic processes) and its effects on the adaptation of forests to climate change (resistance, resilience and transformation), (ii) to analyse how forest regeneration can be managed to establish adapted forests while maintaining NCPs and biodiversity conservation at both local and landscape scales, (iii) to explore different forms of governance for adapting forest regeneration to climate change, as well as the resulting future pathways of forest social-ecological systems.
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