Forestry

The Spruce-Up Project targets the affects of global warming by utilizing phenotypic traits and comparative genomics to identify and validate biomarkers for resistance to biotic and abiotic stress. The overarching goal of Spruce-Up was to produce new/enhanced genomics and socioeconomic information for development, validation, and implementation of biomarkers/Genomic Selection (GS) systems to accelerate spruce breeding […]

Climate change is impacting forest health and productivity. Trees will be poorly adapted to their future environment if we stick to the status quo practice of using seed from local populations for reforestation. The goals of this project are: (1) to use genomic tools combined with experiments to testing trees’ resistance to heat, cold, drought

Why is this research important to Alberta? Climate change in Alberta has been impacting forests for over a decade. Our understanding of the trees being used to produce seed for reforestation has largely been restricted to height (growth), with little understanding of the variation in, for example, drought tolerance, insect resistance, or wood quality. By