Long-term and large-scale Quercus petraea population survey conducted in provenance tests installed in France

Abstract

Key message: Provenance tests are invaluable resources in forest genetics and ecology. They were originally established for seed sourcing research, but they are now also used for monitoring and predicting population responses to environmental changes. They have also raised considerable interest for conservation purposes. We provide here a data resource for a multisite large-scale long-term provenance test on sessile oak (Quercus petraea (Matt.) Liebl.) setup in the late 1980s in France, supplemented with a few selected Q. robur provenances. The experimental layout comprises a range-wide collection of 124 provenances (109 Q. petraea and 15 Q. robur) planted at four experimental sites covering 90 ha in total. The dataset includes individual tree assessments of traits of functional, ecological and economic importance. Dataset access is at https://doi.org/10.15454/838U9L, and associated metadata are available at https://metadata-afs.nancy.inra.fr/geonetwork/srv/fre/catalog.search#/metadata/ede45af7-22bb-432b-8c30-af4c5248ff3e.