Your new experience awaits. Try the new design now and help us make it even better

ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Plant Sci.

Sec. Functional Plant Ecology

Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpls.2025.1650428

This article is part of the Research TopicClimate Adaptations and Challenges of Non-native Tree Species in Forest EcosystemsView all 9 articles

High productivity of tree species planted outside their current geographic range indicates large regions of unrealized niche space

Provisionally accepted
  • 1British Columbia Ministry of Forests, Omineca District, Prince George, Canada
  • 2British Columbia Ministry of Forests, Victoria, Canada

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

Reforestation efforts that utilize assisted range expansion in response to climate change require an enhanced understanding of tree species' fundamental niches as well as potential interactions with local species when planted in novel environments. Using height-age modeling and dendrochronological approaches, we analyzed height and radial growth data from 25 disparate experimental plantings of three temperate zone conifer species (Douglas-fir, western larch and ponderosa pine) in environments north of, and colder than, their current geographic range in British Columbia, Canada, to explore how these types of trials can provide important insights into tree species' fundamental niches in regions that lack comprehensive, replicated experiments. Height growth of the three species exceeded or equaled that of populations growing within their realized niche, suggesting that from a growth perspective, the fundamental niches of these species have historically included environments colder and further north than their current ranges. The productivity of Douglas-fir and western larch also exceeded that of a local tree species, lodgepole pine, across a range of sites and climates within the study region, indicating that these species may be successful competitors with other species outside their range. Across all species and locations, environmental constraints on tree productivity appear to be more consistently related to available soil moisture than temperature. This study suggests that temperate conifers may have unrealized niche space far outside their current geographic range, and their potential for range expansion may be larger than suggested by species distribution models.

Keywords: assisted range expansion, forest productivity, Realized niche, fundamental niche, assisted migration, silviculture, Climate Change, Species distribution modeling (SDM)

Received: 19 Jun 2025; Accepted: 07 Aug 2025.

Copyright: © 2025 Griesbauer, O'Neill and MacKenzie. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence: Hardy Griesbauer, British Columbia Ministry of Forests, Omineca District, Prince George, Canada

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.