Abstract
<title>Abstract</title> <p> <italic> <bold>Context</bold> </italic> : Increasing the structural and species diversity of planted forests may improve their ability to face ongoing environmental shifts. However, converting planted forests to Continuous Cover Forestry (CCF) may reduce genetic diversity of these stands, potentially hindering their ability to cope with environmental changes. <italic> <bold>Aims</bold> </italic> : To assess the genetic diversity of planted trees and their offspring in six stands of <italic>Pseudotsuga menziesii</italic> at different stages of conversion to Continuous Cover Forestry (CCF). <italic> <bold>Methods:</bold> </italic> We conducted species diversity surveys and determined the genotypes of 513 individuals in adult and juvenile stand strata. <italic> <bold>Results</bold> </italic> : The observed heterozygosity was consistently high (0.48 on average); however, the effective population size (Ne) was variable with Ne < 500 at five of six sites. Overall, we did not observe any loss of heterozygosity or statistically significant differences in Ne among generations, i.e., between the adult trees and juvenile seedlings. <italic> <bold>Conclusion</bold> </italic> Our findings suggest that stand conversion to CCF does not cause a short-term trade-off between species diversity and genetic diversity. Our study highlights the key aspects associated with the maintenance of standing genetic diversity in conjunction with CCF in the face of ongoing environmental changes. </p>