IS A LARGE EU-FUNDED NETWORK OF EXCELLENCE LAUNCHED IN APRIL 2006 TO ANALYZE THE IMPACTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE ON FOREST ECOSYSTEMS FROM AN EVOLUTIONARY PERSPECTIVE.

A BETTER UNDERSTANDING OF THE EVOLUTIONARY history of forest trees can help us to predict how they might respond to climate change. Forests are complex ecosystems and subsequently forest research needs to apply different approaches to gain a better understanding of how they function. The European forest research community has carried out numerous important studies on forest biodiversity. However, many institutes maintain overlapping research infrastructures and often carry out similare studies without coordination.

EVOLTREE WILL LAST FOUR YEARS and will create a Network of Excellence to integrate European research infrastructures and resources to study the adaptive capacity of tree species using sophisticated methods, and to engage the scientific community into a dialogue with policy-makers and other stakeholders.

THE EVOLTREE NETWORK INVOLVES 25 RESEARCH GROUPS from 15 European countries that are working together to identify and study genes of adaptive significance in order to evaluate the contribution they make to the evolution of tree species and tree communities.

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