Welcome

Welcome to the webpage for the Open Redcedar Adaptation Network! Here you will find information, resources, data, and examples of analyses for you to explore.

You are welcome to participate in a small project to explore options for conserving western redcedar. The project was designed as an open demonstration where communities can participate in the stewardship, monitoring, and comparison of redcedar trees grown from two seed sources.

Together we can study the climate adaptation potential of this important tree species to the Pacific Northwest.

Help Shape This Project

Want to help develop or co-produce the Open Redcedar Adaptation Network? Anyone is welcome. Connect with us and let us know you’re interested.

Get Involved

Want to be involved or engage your students in this project?

Connect with us here: https://foresthealth.org/adaptation

Purpose

The purpose of this network is to provide opportunities for education about climate adaptation. Anyone is welcome to visit a planting site, measure trees to collect data, do some analyses, and share what they’re learning!

The Problem

Western redcedar is a important tree species in the Pacific Northwest, but it may need our help to stay healthy. Unfortunately, many redcedar trees have been observed dying recently and we’re concerned about its survival in future climates. You can help accelerate research about the dieback by contributing to the Western Redcedar Dieback Map project. These observations are valuable for understanding why redcedar is unhealthy, but the next step is to explore what we can do about it.

What can we do to help keep this species healthy?

Possible Solution

Together we can explore the genetic diversity of western redcedar as a tool for keeping trees healthy in a climate adaptation study. We can investigate if trees adapted to climates in Oregon will be better suited for upcoming climates in Washington.

Study Approach

We’ve established a network of plantings with trees grown from populations in two seed zones. Trees from each zone are planted in alternating rows at each site.

Are trees from Oregon better adapted to future climates in Washington? You can help answer this question!

The Network

There are three plantings of western redcedar trees at three sites in western Washington.

  • Planting Locations
    • Discovery Park, Seattle (Planted February 8, 2022)
    • Swan Creek Park, Tacoma (Planted March 19, 2022)
    • Black River Riparian Forest, Renton (Planting Date May 7th or May 14th, 2022)

Each planting location has or will have trees from both seed zones planted in rows.

Western redcedar planting at Discovery Park in Seattle Volunteers planting trees at Swan Creek Park in Tacoma


Link to Google Map with planting locations


Openness

The data of this project are maintained openly so others can participate and learn from the study. If you collect data, please consider sharing it here so others can benefit. More instructions coming soon!

Preliminary Data

Below you can explore some of the data available already.

Note the trees were not stored in a manner to compare tree heights or diameters in the first measurement. For example, before planting, we kept the trees separate to avoid accidentally mixing an Oregon tree with a Washington tree.

We plan to monitor the change in heights and diameters each year to compare between seed zones, sites, and annual climate variables.

Download Data

This webpage and data are hosted in a github repository. The content on this page is compiled using R Markdown, but the data is maintained as a .csv file.

Download the data by visiting: https://github.com/jmhulbert/adaptation

Anyone is welcome to collaborate to add or make changes to the github repository (https://github.com/jmhulbert/adaptation).

  • As a repository collaborator:
    • You are welcome to clone the repository to your system and work from the R Project file (adaptation.Rproj) in Rstudio or you can make changes to the .csv files (./data/).
    • You can also make changes directly to the .csv file through your browser.
    • Or you can make changes by downloading the .csv file, altering, committing and pushing it back to the repository.
    • You can also drop new .csv files into the ./data/ folder in the repository.

Note that you need a github account to collaborate or make changes. Feel free to contact JM Hulbert for additional details and instructions, or to request a change or addition.

Note the Markdown (index.Rmd) file will need to be knit before the changes will be visible on this webpage.

Summary

Site Plantings and Measurements

Summary coming soon.

Note the initial tree measuresments were collected on different days depending on the site (depending on when they would be planted). Therefore, comparisons between sites should be taken lightly.

For example, trees at the Seattle site were remeasured 430 days after intial measurements, where trees at the Renton site were remeasured 342 days after initial measurement. Therefore, trees at Seattle are likely not growing faster, but rather, had larger time interval between measurements.

Number of Trees

The below table lists the number of trees that were remeasured in 2024 at each site, excluding outliers.

Note, this table only includes trees that had positive height and diameter growth. For example, some trees were heavily browsed in 2024 and therefore may be shorter than trees in 2023.

Site Seed.Zone n
Renton OR 15
Renton WA 34
Seattle OR 30
Seattle WA 35
Swan Creek OR 29
Swan Creek WA 26
Mean Height and Diameter Increase

The below table lists mean height and diameter increases between seed zones.

Seed.Zone n mean.height.2024 mean.diameter.2024 mean.y1.height.growth mean.y1.diameter.growth mean.y2.height.growth mean.y2.diameter.growth mean.total.height.growth mean.total.diameter.growth
OR 74 125.22 24.61 8.96 4.14 33.36 11.58 42.32 15.72
WA 95 130.25 23.61 7.38 3.75 30.58 9.59 37.96 13.34

Trees from Oregon had a mean total height increase of 42.32cm and trees from Washington had a mean total height increase of 37.96cm.

Mean Increase by Site

The table below provides the same data, expect the means were calculated across seed zones and sites.

Site Seed.Zone n mean.height.2024 mean.diameter.2024 mean.y1.height.growth mean.y1.diameter.growth mean.y2.height.growth mean.y2.diameter.growth mean.total.height.growth mean.total.diameter.growth
Renton OR 15 118.67 15.59 8.23 2.73 29.00 3.23 37.23 5.96
Renton WA 34 132.82 17.98 7.72 2.66 29.68 4.45 37.40 7.11
Seattle OR 30 139.37 29.18 11.47 5.30 45.10 15.92 56.57 21.22
Seattle WA 35 136.71 28.31 8.87 5.09 39.77 14.01 48.65 19.11
Swan Creek OR 29 113.97 24.54 6.74 3.67 23.48 11.41 30.22 15.08
Swan Creek WA 26 118.19 24.64 4.92 3.37 19.38 10.35 24.30 13.72


Tree Height Increase

The below plots show the distributions in increases in tree height for each seed zone.

## Warning: The `<scale>` argument of `guides()` cannot be `FALSE`. Use "none" instead as
## of ggplot2 3.3.4.
## This warning is displayed once every 8 hours.
## Call `lifecycle::last_lifecycle_warnings()` to see where this warning was
## generated.


The below plots show the distributions in increases in tree height for each seed zone and site


Tree Diameter Increase

The below plots show the distributions in increases in tree diameter for each seed zone


The below plots show the distributions in increases in tree diameter for each seed zone and site

Mortality




Western redcedar planting at Swan Creek Park in Tacoma
Western redcedar planting at Swan Creek Park in Tacoma


Collaborators, Partners and Supporters

  • The Open Redcedar Adaptation Network is powered by
    • Washington State University
    • Seattle Parks and Recreation
    • Metro Parks Tacoma
    • Tacoma Tree Foundation
    • City of Renton
    • Manulife Investment Management
    • Weyerhaeuser

This project is part of the Forest Health Watch program.