Third Millennium Forestry: What climate change might mean to forests and forest management in Ontario

TLDR

Climate change is projected to alter Ontario’s forest ecosystems through elevated CO₂, higher temperatures, and shifting precipitation, affecting physiological and ecological processes, driving northward range shifts, increasing disturbance frequency, and necessitating enhanced afforestation, conservation, and carbon‑sequestration efforts to meet greenhouse‑gas targets. Silvicultural interventions will be increasingly employed to preserve forest health, manage declining stands, regenerate disturbed and cutover sites with targeted species and genotypes, sustain genetic diversity, and facilitate species migration. Keywords: adaptation, afforestation, bioenergy, carbon dioxide, climate change, disturbance, intensive forest management, migration, mitigation, sequestration, succession.

Abstract

Climate change may profoundly influence Ontario's forest ecosystems and their management. Elevated atmospheric CO 2 concentrations, increased temperature and altered precipitation regimes will affect forest vegetation through their influence on physiological (e.g., photosynthesis, respiration) and ecological processes (e.g., net primary production, decomposition), and may result in dramatic northward shifts in the natural range of forest types and species. More importantly, climate change is expected to increase the frequency of natural disturbances. Silvicultural intervention will increasingly be relied on to maintain forest health, manage declining stands, regenerate disturbed areas and cutovers with desired species and genotypes, maintain genetic diversity, and assist in species migration. Given the increasingly important role of Ontario's forests in national and provincial efforts to meet greenhouse gas emission reduction targets of the Kyoto Protocol, afforestation, conservation of existing forests, and increased forest management activities to accelerate the storage of carbon in Ontario's forests will be key aspects of forestry at the start of the third millennium. Key words: adaptation, afforestation, bioenergy, carbon dioxide, climate change, disturbance, intensive forest management, migration, mitigation, sequestration, succession