Identifying candidate plants for climate-informed restoration

Ecological adaptation to rapid climate change requires information about which species might establish, persist, or disappear from plant communities. While range shift projections are available for selected individual species, these analyses are rarely focused on the plant community. Here, we leverage plant community surveys across the United States to identify potential shifts in silver maple community assemblages across a temperature gradient (hardiness zones). We analyzed 1,052 vegetation survey plots using multivariate techniques and found marginally significant community-level differences in silver maple community assemblages across U.S. Department of Agriculture hardiness zones. We identified species associated with silver maple communities across both broad and narrow ranges of hardiness zones. We illustrate how this approach can be used for climate-informed management. Taxa associated with a narrow range of hardiness zones may be candidates for assisted migration, the relocation of species outside of their historical native range in anticipation of climate change. In contrast, taxa associated with a broad range of hardiness zones may be able to adapt to climate change, particularly if the population is genetically diverse or if restoration includes assisted gene flow, where seeds or individuals are sourced from populations in the direction of projected climate change within their native ranges. Our study demonstrates how macroscale community analysis can leverage existing datasets to identify taxa for future climate-informed conservation and restoration.