COST Action E 52 - vTI - Bund.de

Genetic resources of beech in Europe – current state
Introductory Note
European beech (Fagus sylvatica L.) is a major and wide-spread forest tree species with a natural
occurrence from Scandinavian to Mediterranean countries and ranging from the Atlantic influenced
climate in West-Europe to the more continentally influenced regions in Central and South-Central
Europe, covering an area of roughly 14 million ha of forest land. Beech is not only of interest for
economic reasons. It is also of high ecological and silvicultural value and acts to stabilise forest
ecosystems. Beech forests are beneficial for the production of ground water and the regeneration of
depleted soils.
Beech is a dominating species in many forest ecosystems. Other species of these ecosystems depend
on co-existence with beech. Beech is thus viewed as a flagship species of many ecosystems because
they would not exist in this form if beech were not present.
As a widely spread tree species, European beech and its ecosystems will be affected by climate change
differently in different regions. Conditions in the north and north-east of the present distribution
range will be more favourable for beech and may support further spreading in this region. However,
as beech is growing predominantly in the lowlands, where precipitation is anticipated to be reduced,
while at the same time evapotranspiration will increase due to higher temperatures, beech stands
especially of the southern and south-eastern range of the present distribution will be affected most
severely. Migrations of beech populations in the Mediterranean region to higher elevations have
already been reported. However, where beech populations already occupy the top of mountain ranges
there is no possibility to migrate further by natural means and such populations may disappear unless
measures of intentional assisted migration are taken. Before climate change progresses and impacts
the ecosystems physically, which is expected to occur in a higher frequency of extreme drought years
like 2003, action should be taken.
Due to this concern, COST Action E52 “Evaluation of Beech Genetic Resources for Sustainable
Forestry” (http://www.vti.bund.de/de/startseite/institute/fg/forschungsbereiche/herkunfts-undzuechtungsforschung.html)
was implemented and twenty-two European countries as well as
Bioversity, Rome, (EUFORGEN-Programme) have agreed to participate. The main objective of this
COST Action is to evaluate for the first time jointly 60 field trials located in 19 European countries
of the International Beech Provenance Trial established in two series 1995 and 1998 with a total of
200 provenances representing the whole distribution area of beech. This common garden experiment
allows predictions of the future distribution range of beech forest ecosystems under the assumption
of certain scenarios of climate change, basing on the analysis of the reaction pattern of European
Beech populations of defined origin (provenance = progenies of natural beech stands) under changed
climate situations in sets of pan European field trials.
The network of forest geneticists created by COST Action E52 including all major countries where
European beech occurs, provided the platform to decide about the scope and contents of the present
publication, “Communicationes Instituti Forestalis Bohemicae, vol. 25”. Covering the whole range
of European beech distribution, the present publication with its 29 country reports (including three
papers reporting information about 3 million ha of Oriental beech) attempts to give an overview of
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