This $189,979 Project Grant from the National Science Foundation's Biological Sciences program (CFDA 47.074) supports research into continent-wide forest recruitment change and its interactions with climate, habitat, and consumers in North America. The Regents of the University of California, doing business as the University of California, Berkeley, will conduct the research from September 1, 2022 to August 31, 2026.
The research will quantify current trends and changes in forest regeneration across North America, and the habitat changes causing them. It will develop a biogeographic network to monitor tree seed production, seedling establishment, and recruitment at scales relevant to habitats and plant communities. The research team will collect extensive gradient sampling data on fecundity, recruitment, and vertebrate activity distributed across climate and habitat gradients. Predictive vertebrate modeling using various continental camera trap, live trapping, and bird point count data will assess relationships between tree recruitment, climate, habitat variables, and vertebrate seed and nut consumers. Outcomes will identify recruitment-limited tree species and life stages, quantify the vertebrate relationship, and evaluate predictive distribution models of environmental change impacts.