Consideration of Abies cilicica for central European reforestation

Abstract

A sequence of central European summer droughts since 2018 has intensified the quest for suitable reforestation species. The fact that newly planted trees will experience a warmer, drier and likely also more variable climate, however, challenge the forest sector. Here, we explore the drought resistance and resilience of Taurus fir (Abies cilicica (Ant. & Kotschy) Carr.), and discuss its potential for ecosystem service, timber production and carbon storage under future climate change. We measured earlywood and latewood widths of 109 Taurus firs from two neighbouring sites in southern Türkiye. Average summer temperatures at the species’ biogeographic heartland are comparable to those of the exceptional central European heatwave in 2018, while precipitation at our sites is still much lower. Mean tree age is 89 years, and the average growth rate of 1.5 mm is dominated by 75 % earlywood. The various tree-ring chronologies correlate significantly with May to July precipitation (r > 0.7; 1960–2022), and their tailed positive distributions are indicative of arid baseline conditions. We suggest Abies cilicica as a potential candidate for mixed-species reforestation on appropriate soils in central Europe. Acknowledging the long-term consequences of silvicultural decisions, stronger collaborations between stakeholders and researchers are needed to prepare the forestry sector for direct and indirect effects of anticipated climate change.