Sjöman, Henrik
- Department of Landscape Architecture, Planning and Management, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
- Gothenburg Botanical Garden
- Royal Botanic Gardens Kew
- University of Gothenburg
Abstract
Trees are among our best allies in the fight against climate change and biodiversity loss. Although we often think of them in forests, most of our interactions with trees take place in urban environments and in private gardens, where they provide us with shade, heat control, flood avoidance, noise and pollution reduction, beauty, and much more. However, to maintain and increase those manifold benefits we urgently need to rethink tree selection for our parks and gardens, to include those species and provenances most suitable for the environmental conditions and stresses posed by a rapidly changing and unpredictable climate, spreading pests and emerging plant diseases. To create resilience to present and future challenges, where the exact consequences of future scenarios cannot be predicted in advance, a commonly proposed solution is to cultivate a large diversity of trees, i.e., increase tree diversity at many taxonomic levels. Achieving an increased diversity of trees to improve the resilience to future conditions is likely to involve greater use of non-traditional species and unique genetic types of trees. Here we want to discuss the need to acknowledge intraspecific variation within species when planning resilient tree populations for urban environments securing a matching genetic plant material for future environmental challenges with suggestions of strategies to enrich urban tree diversity and resilience. This includes an insight in a unique research profile which includes travels all over the world to study natural environments matching urban environments and further evaluation of trees for urban challenges in order to create a firsthand guidance in finding the right tree for the right place and function. Through careful plant physiological studies, it is possible to identify clear differences between different genetic types (ecotypes) within the same species, which makes it possible to tailor the right tree for the right place and function to a greater extent than earlier.
Keywords
climate change; ecosystem services; plant selection; tree selection; urban trees
Published in
Acta Horticulturae
2025, number: 1429, pages: 51-62
Title: Proceedings of the ISHS Acta Horticulturae 1429 III International Symposium on Greener Cities: Improving Ecosystem Services in a Climate-Changing World (GreenCities2024)
Publisher: International Society for Horticultural Science
Conference
III International Symposium on Greener Cities: Improving Ecosystem Services in a Climate-Changing World (GreenCities2024), September 25-28 2024, United Kingdom
SLU Authors
UKÄ Subject classification
Landscape Architecture
Publication identifier
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2025.1429.6
- ISBN: 978-94-62614-28-4
Permanent link to this page (URI)
https://res.slu.se/id/publ/142906