The Evoltree final scientific conference, entitled "Forest ecosystem genomics and adaptation", took place in San Lorenzo de El Escorial (Madrid), Spain, from 9 to 11 June 2010.

The book of abstracts and other useful materials can be downloaded at http://www.ecosystemgenomics2010.fgua.es. Other conference materials can be downloaded from the EVOLTREE portal.

The event lined up top‐notch speakers from across the world and representatives of the European Commission and gathered about 230 participants from 37 countries attending the conference from as far afield as Argentina, China, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam, as well as Europe and North America. The event also attracted a number of Stakeholders, users of the knowledge generated by research, invited to join a dedicated stakeholder session for policy-makers, non‐governmental organizations, forest managers and nature conservation agencies.

The sessions spanned a range of themes from phenotypic variation in different adaptive traits, to novel screening techniques to identify gene-functions, from different approaches to understanding evolutionary responses to environmental changes in trees and associated species to the recent findings on dispersal, colonization dynamics and pollination ecology, which allow formulating predictions on how the changing climate will likely affect the suitable habitat for many tree species. The most recent technological developments, including new sequencing technologies, high throughput genotyping methods, data handling and management applicable to ecosystem genomics were presented. Finally, different options to mitigate the negative impacts of climate change on forest health and productivity were examined.

This scientific event showed that our understanding has progressed considerably and we have now available large catalogues of genes that are responsible for determining adaptive responses of forest ecosystems. However, despite the technical achievements more thinking is needed to address some issues not properly tackled yet, such as how genes move across landscapes through different mechanisms of dispersal, facilitating species migration under the pressure of environmental change. Moreover, further use of modeling is needed to be able to project future scenarios, filling the gaps in our knowledge and allowing application of current understanding to forest management.

Finally, the event showed that the interdisciplinary nature of research should be further strengthened. The investigation of forest ecosystem responses to climate change requires multidisciplinary approaches and while genetics, genomics and evolutionary biology were well represented in the conference sessions, ecology needs to be better linked to the other disciplines.

The Stakeholder session, an unusual component within a highly scientific programme, was very well attended. The Stakeholders appreciated the serious efforts made since the inception of the Evoltree project to engage the end users of the research findings produced. Several topics emerged from the comments of the Stakeholder Panel members: the need to maintain the genetic diversity and adaptation capacity of existing forests, the need for guidelines on how to use, and possibly move, forest reproductive material in the face of climate change; the growing need for regulatory mechanisms for access and benefit sharing of forest genetic resources, the urge to implement coordinated efforts for the conservation and use of forest genetic diversity at national and international levels; and finally, the need to bring the scientific research findings to the attention of policy making fora (such as Forest Europe), in a format largely accessible to non-experts in genetics and genomics.