Figure 2. The cities (green stars) hosting the Climate Adapted Oak Restoration Study are areas with under-represented, under-
resourced, and potentially vulnerable populations, as shown by the Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool (left panel),
which maps "disadvantaged communities." Urban areas are experiencing higher temperatures than less populated areas
(right panel), due to the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect, an additional stressor on trees and forests, and on people.
and simply from old age. Successful regeneration
of oaks requires planning and intentional manage-
ment, in cities and throughout their native range.
Urban forest managers have a wealth of knowledge
based on decades of managing forests in their cities.
They have learned which species do well in each
location. They watch and learn as their forests grow
and change. However, they are currently facing the
unknown. They see that the sustainability of forests
in cities is threatened by climate change and other
stressors like invasive species, fragmentation, and
pollution (Fowler
et al. 2021, Piana et al. 2021).
This is where research can play an important role, con-
ducting applied studies that explore novel approaches
at small scales—e.g., new planting techniques, different
species mixes, and new genotypes. These small-scale
plantings can aid in developing new management
strategies that can help increase the overall sustain-
ability and resilience of forests in cities. This includes
the opportunity to advance understanding of how oak
systems will respond to continued global change—and
to test new adaptive management strategies rele-
vant to urban managers and oak conservation more
broadly. An example of our current work follows.
Climate-Adapted Oak
Restoration Study in Cities
In 2020, the USDA Forest Service and partners con-
vened a network of 15 scientists and 23 urban
forest managers (conservation practitioners) in a
workshop focused on urban and climate vulnera-
bility, adaptation, and management strategies for
forests in cities across the northeastern United
States (Piana
et al. 2021). The Northeast Urban
Silviculture Network created a study design, par-
tially funded by a Forest Service grant awarded to
Dr. Tara Trammell at the University of Delaware.
During the fall of 2022 we collected 100,000 acorns
from six seed zones spanning a climate gradient
stretching from Tennessee to Massachusetts. The
acorns were planted at a nursery in Kentucky and
lifted in February 2023. From March to May 2023,
we planted 9,000 bare-root oak seedlings in each
of four cities. The cities of Baltimore, Maryland;
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; New Haven, Connecticut;
and Springfield, Massachusetts, each received trees
that have parents from every seed zone (Figure 2). >>
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