The Future of Our Forests: Bridging Ecology and Evolution

Ecological and evolutionary processes influence all levels of biological organization. When it comes to forest trees, these ecological properties include population
dynamics, species interactions, and organism-environment relationships. On the evolutionary side, natural selection, local adaptation, trait evolution, and heritability all play roles in forest health. How are these two aspects related, and what does it mean for the future of our forests?
 

Forest and conservation biologist Patricia Maloney will discuss the importance of bridging the fields of population ecology and evolutionary biology to understand and predict forest tree dynamics and evolutionary potential given rapid environmental changes.