Started in 2015 and funded by NSERC and FESBC, the Mother Tree Project is a large, scientific, field-based experiment that builds on prior research with the central objective of identifying sustainable harvesting and regeneration treatments that will maintain forest resilience as climate changes in British Columbia.

The project is unique to British Columbia because of its large scale and replication across a broad climate gradient. It is the first to test partial retention harvesting alongside transfer of genotypes from other climate regions, and to consider Mother Trees as important ecosystem components.

The Mother Tree Project explores the following research questions:

  • What role do Mother Trees play in forest regeneration?
  • What seedling mixes work best for forest regeneration?
  • How does the size, number and distribution of trees retained (left uncut) at a harvesting site impact forest regeneration?
  • How is the forest carbon budget affected by various harvesting and regeneration treatments?
  • How is biodiversity (animals, plants, fungi, bacteria) affected by various harvesting and regeneration treatments?
  • What are the ecological processes that drive these responses?
Learn about our Research Methods
Forest at Peterhope Lake research site

Learn more about the experiment: