Forest and Climate Change: Combining Ecological Niche and Forestry Site Concepts to Understand and Prepare for the Future

In this paper, H. Le Bouler traces the development of interactions between researchers and forest managers over the past twenty years regarding climate change impacts. It highlights the formation and activities of the RMT AFORCE network, established in 2008 to coordinate research, development, and management efforts for forest adaptation. The second part proposes a novel framework combining species ecological niche theory—through modelling natural and potential distribution areas—with forest site typology. This integrated approach aims to generate practical decision support tools to guide adaptive forest management under uncertain climatic trajectories, bridging scientific insights and on-the-ground operational needs.