Overview
FORGENIUS project— an H2020 project, funded by the EU — will give an insight into the diversity of European forests and their resilience to climate change. The project uses state-of-the-art technology and knowledge in plant and evolutionary biology, ecology, remote-sensing, genomics, genetics, modelling, and forestry. It aims to upgrade the current European Information System on Forest Genetic Resources (EUFGIS) platform, by adding new types of data and information on the Genetic Conservation Units (GCU), allowing predictions of the fate of European forests in the short, medium, and long term. Such a tool will be the key to invent new, adaptive strategies to preserve these extraordinary natural assets at the continental level.
Forest genetic resources are the foundation of the services forests provide. These resources are managed in co-ordinated fashion across Europe thanks to the European Forest Genetic Resources Programme. EUFORGEN was founded in 1994 and is the most advanced programme of its kind in the world.
Genetic Conservation Units — a continent-wide collection of in-situ accessions of forest genetic resources — represent one of EUFORGEN’s great achievements.
The network of Genetic Conservation Units (GCUs) coordinated by EUFORGEN is a repository of Europe’s valuable forest tree genetic diversity. The network encompasses a fair representation of the genetic diversity of forest trees in Europe, which includes the genetic basis of local adaptation. GCUs in the EUFGIS database have a designated status that recognises their importance for genetic conservation at national level.
FORGENIUS objectives
