Dendrochronology and genetic diversity through climate change: A critical review of sweet chestnut

¹ Directorate of Secondary Education, Naousa-Imathia 59200, Greece
² *University of Thessaly, Department of Environmental sciences, Laboratory of Environmental Chemistry and Human Health, Larisa 41500, Greece
³ University of Thessaly, Department of Forestry - Wood Science and Design, Karditsa, Greece
⁴ Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Department of Forestry and Natural Environment, Laboratory of Wood Utilisation, Thessaloniki, Greece

^* Corresponding author: kakavas@uth.gr

Abstract

The management of forest ecosystems is inextricably related to the evolution of climate change due to the strong interaction between them. According to this assumption, sweet chestnut forest management strategies as well as carbon estimation are analyzed in terms of adaptation to climate change and reducing the adverse effects of climate change. Along with the management of sweet chestnut forests and the way it affects or is affected by the phenomenon of climate change in the European area, dendrochronology and genetic diversion are two crucial aspects whose interaction with the climate change is studied in this work. The contribution of chestnut dendrochronology to the study of climate changes and environmental ecology, referred to recent and distant past periods, is investigated through the latest literature. The information obtained by dendrochronological assessments can be potentially used in predicting the future effects of the climate change phenomenon which is ongoing nowadays. Additionally, as genetic diversity serves as a way for populations to adapt to changing environments, some data regarding the genetic diversity of chestnut, which have derived from recent scientific publications, are presented in this paper.