ESZF Webinar: Development of Focal Point Seed Zones for the Present and Future
The ninth in the series of Eastern Seed Zone Forum webinars, this installment will feature Dr. William H. Parker, Natural Resources Management, Lakehead University, Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada. Dr. Parker will discuss the use of the focal seed zone approach, which establishes a unique seed procurement zone using GIS methods based on a focal point centered around a particular site targeted for reforestation.
Please join the USDA Forest Service Reforestation, Nurseries, and Genetics Resources' Eastern Seed Zone Forum for its ninth onlione discussion about what it will take to create seed zone guidelines to serve as tools for improved collaborations and partnership in the region. In this webinar, Dr. William H. Parker will explain the focal point seed zone (FPSZ) approach. FPSZ assumes that a unique set of best adapted seed sources exists for any single planting site (the focal point). Using the focal point seed zone approach, an individual site to be reforested becomes the focal point, and a unique seed procurement zone is established for that site using GIS methodology. The short-term common garden approach of Jerry Rehfeldt, showing seedling growth pattern of conifers is linked with climate of seed origin, was adapted for FPSZ basic data procurement so that seed sources adapted to hypothetical future climates may be identified and utilized in reforestation efforts.
References:
Focal point seed zones: site-specific seed zone delineation using geographic information systems. Can. J. For Research 22:267-271
Regression-based focal point seed zones for Picea mariana from northwestern Ontario. Can. J. Botany 74:1227-1235
About the ESZF
The National Forest System needs your help to develop seed zones for the eastern United States! With the input of forestry and natural resource professionals like you, these seed zones have the potential to provide a common frame of reference for nurseries, arboreta, state and federal agencies, and other natural resource organizations to address sustainable forest management and ecosystem restoration challenges across regional and political boundaries.
About Dr. William H. Parker
Dr. William H. Parker's research interests are in the areas of taxonomy and genecology (a melding of genetics, ecology and taxonomy) of Canadian conifers. His interest in adaptive variation in boreal conifers has generated considerable short-term test research in the last decade. This research has been funded by the Canadian Federal (NSERC) and Ontario (OMNR,FGO) Governments together with the Forest Industry of Northwestern Ontario. It has led to a new approach to define seed zones of black spruce, white spruce, jack pine and white pine using GIS to produce Focal Point Seed Zones. Dr. Parker trained as an undergraduate at Amerst Collegeand Reed College, and his graduate training is in forest science at Yale University, at University of British Columbia, and UBC working with Limnanthes.
