Summer School: Adapting forests to climate change: Operationalizing assisted migration

Building on the success of its inaugural edition in 2023, the Austrian Research Centre for Forests (BFW), the Czech University of Life Sciences (CZU), and EVOLTREE will collaboratively host the third Summer School on Adapting Forests to Climate Change: Operationalizing of Assisted Migration will be held at the Forestry Training Centre of Austrian Research Centre for Forests-FAST Traunkirchen, Austria from 28 July to 1 August 2025.

What are the topics

This summer school aims to provide in-depth insight into the Assisted Migration of forests in climate change with a focus on models to guide decision support. Specific topics are: 

• Develop machine-learning based models to identify and spatially map adapted and maladapted populations of forest tree species in climate change.
• Quantitative genetic mechanisms of local adaptation and, through excursions to forest provenance trials.
• Integration of assisted migration with forest tree breeding, and the primary delivery systems of adapted forest reproductive material, including seed orchards and forest nurseries.
• Digital Innovation Technologies in Forestry: highthroughput phenotyping for analyzing biotic and abiotic stressors and much more under controlled conditions.
   

Who can participate

Master's students, doctoral candidates, postdoctoral researchers, practitioners, or professionals passionate about adapting forests to climate change while utilizing and conserving genetic variation within tree species. 

Lectures and excursions will be held in English. Elementary knowledge of statistics and R programming is expected. Please bring your laptop.

Registration closes on 30 May 2025.