Site conditions rather than provenance drive growth of beech

Recently, the resistance and resilience of beech to climate change has been subject of many studies. The intra-specific variation in tree-growth responses in beech, however, received less attention, as did the question whether provenance selection may be used to mitigate potential future negative impacts. In a recent study of our group, published in Forest Ecology and Management, we therefore compared the growth of 24 beech provenances at three sites along an ecological gradient in Germany. We found that differences between sites are large, whereas provenance differentiation within sites was low, substantiating that beech is a highly plastic tree species. Overall, we conclude that climate change will affect beech forests in Europe mainly depending upon site conditions, and that provenance selection may not ensure superior growth performance.