Future Forest

There is significant genetic diversity in the population of forest trees, including those representing the key genus birch that specifies the border the boreal taiga forests and treeless tundra. Recent technological developments in the DNA sequencing technology now allow high-throughput whole genome analysis , while drone technologies allow precise high-throughput monitoring of forest growth, based on remote sensing. Our initiative stands on those two legs. For the first time ever, we will simultaneously monitor the diversity in forest growth and resilience and investigate the genetic basis of such diversity in a country-wide manner in Finland by focusing on the birches. Consequently, we will have a Finland-wide understanding of forest growth and its genetic basis. As Finland is a long country in south-north axis and it thus has many different microenvironments, for example with respect to water-availability, we believe such analysis can model boreal forests more globally. Therefore, we envision high impact on understanding how we can conserve the genetic diversity of forests in the face of the changing climate as well as how we can breed forests with higher resilience and quality for the green economy.