Forest Ecology and Management 533 (2023) 120855 Available online 16 February 2023 0378-1127/© 2023 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Quercus insignis seedling response to climatic transfer distance in the face of climate change Tarin Toledo-Aceves a, * , Cuauht´ emoc S´ aenz-Romero b , Ana Laura Cruzado-Vargas c , Víctor V´ asquez-Reyes a a Red de Ecología Funcional, Instituto de Ecología, A.C. (INECOL), 91073 Xalapa, Veracruz, Mexico b Instituto de Investigaciones sobre los Recursos Naturales, Universidad Michoacana de San Nicol´ as de Hidalgo (UMSNH), Morelia 58330, Michoac´ an, Mexico c Instituto de Investigaciones Agropecuarias y Forestales, Universidad Michoacana de San Nicol´ as de Hidalgo (UMSNH), Morelia 58330, Michoac´ an, Mexico A R T I C L E INFO Keywords: Assisted migration Endangered species Enrichment planting Tree seedling survival Translocation Tropical montane cloud forest ABSTRACT Rising temperatures are causing increased tree mortality at lower elevations and upward migrations in montane tree communities. To reduce the risk of extinction from climate change, managed translocation or assisted migration could serve to support the management of endangered species, but is currently a controversial strategy with very limited information available from experimental feld studies in the tropics. We examined the effect of climatic transfer distance (CTD; the climatic difference between the site of seed origin and the site of plantation) on the establishment of Quercus insignis, an endangered oak with a distribution restricted to cloud forests. If the natural population (seed origin) occurs at its optimum climate, a decline in seedling transplant performance is expected to occur with greater CTD. Enrichment plantings were established in three sites near the seed origin area (at 1400 m a.s.l.), and in fve sites from an elevation similar to the seed source up to high elevations (1365 to 2531 m a.s.l.) in Mexico. We examined the effect of CTD on seedling survival and Relative Growth Rate (RGR) over a period of four years. In the provenance area, a 1.4 ◦ C increase and a 25–30 % annual precipitation decrease were estimated to have occurred during the study period (2018–2021), relative to the reference climate (1960–1990) in which the population in the provenance area developed. We found no signifcant evidence to support lower seedling survival with greater CTD. High survival occurred in sites with a warmer temperature at present (up to 80 % survival), but also in colder sites at higher elevation (up to 90 %), revealing the high tolerance of Q. insignis to a wide range of climatic conditions. The RGR showed the expected decrease with greater CTD of the Aridity Index, refecting the importance of the balance between temperature and water availability. These fndings support the potential of Q. insignis enrichment plantings, both near the seed origin area and at higher elevation (currently 2–3 ◦ C colder than in the provenance area) to compensate for the ex- pected temperature increase. However, the projected reduction in precipitation and cloud immersion within the cloud forest belt associated with climate change, could act to limit growth and lead to lower establishment success. 1. Introduction Global climate change is having a severe impact on the biodiversity of mountain regions, with effects that will continue in the following decades (IPCC, 2022). Some species may adjust to the altered climatic conditions through phenotypic plasticity, selection of adapted in- dividuals, or range shifts by dispersing into new habitats with more favorable conditions, but many will be unable to “keep up” (Davis et al., 2005; Feeley et al., 2007). Increasing temperatures and changing precipitation patterns are driving tree mortality and shifts in species distributions, triggering upward migration in the mountains (Feeley et al., 2007; Jump et al., 2009; Du et al., 2018; Pozner et al., 2022) since temperature decreases with increased elevation (~5 ◦ C per 1000 m; Rosenberg et al., 1983; S´ aenz-Romero et al., 2010). Indeed, increased tree mortality in adults and juveniles associated with increasing tem- peratures at lower elevation, as well as shifts upslope have been reported in tropical montane forest trees in Peru, Costa Rica, Colombia, and Ecuador (Feeley et al., 2011; Feeley et al., 2013; Duque et al., 2015; * Corresponding author. E-mail address: tarin.toledo@inecol.mx (T. Toledo-Aceves). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Forest Ecology and Management journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/foreco https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foreco.2023.120855 Received 30 November 2022; Received in revised form 1 February 2023; Accepted 5 February 2023