As the climate changes, cities scramble to find trees that will survive

In urban forestry I would say it’s almost the opposite—there is an implicit assumption that introduced plants will do better among many arborists and others that goes beyond the evidence in my view. Basically all native plants are written off as infeasible for urban areas, yet species from Northern Europe, eastern North America, and east Asia are planted unquestioningly, despite big differences between our climate and those areas.

Among the public there is a stronger pro-native sentiment, but then in my experience many people don’t even know what the word means, they’ve just osmosed that it’s something good.

In my view there are many native species that will do well into the future—particularly when planted at the northern edge of a plant’s range. But the truth is, there are no guarantees, and you need to evaluate the tolerance of each species on a case by case basis. Right now I’m very interested in taking a more bioregional view of what it means to be native—it’s clear that northern and mountain natives will not thrive in our area going forward, but species from the broader Southwest region that occupy similar soils and moisture regimes but experience hotter temperatures may be solid for both biodiversity conservation and climate adaptation. Further research is needed to quantify the pros and cons of this topic.