The Institute of Agricultural and Food Research and Technology (INIA), beneficiary of the Biodiversity Foundation’s call for grants to carry out projects in the field of adaptation to climate change 2017, has developed the QuMATURE project to analyse the functional, genetic, structural and compositional changes in mature Mediterranean Quercus forests in the PPNN of Monfragüe and Cabañeros. considering the effects of ageing and the absence of management on the reproductive potential and viability of progeny, forest dynamics and vulnerability and resilience to climate change.

In addition, it is thus possible to determine whether these secondary forests can achieve the characteristics of a primary mature forest after a prolonged period without intervention, as is the case in National Parks, making it possible to carry out a more precise characterization of their degree of maturity to project their future dynamics and conservation by considering different management and climate change scenarios.

The project has been carried out in the two PPNN based on data collected in a network of plots, where different individuals of the three most representative Quercus (Q. suber and Q. faginea in Monfragüe; Q. suber, Q. faginea and Q. pyrenaica in Cabañeros), measuring dasometric variables, collecting acorns, regenerated, estimating flowering, making an inventory of woody species and taking cores for age determination. The study has been completed with the installation of a greenhouse trial to monitor the viability, germination and subsequent emergence of the acorn in Q. suber, as well as the laboratory analysis of the efficiency in the use of water, and genotyping of the regenerate.

After these analyses, no effect of maturity has been found that allows (at the ages analyzed) to conclude that the mature forests studied are different from the younger ones in their evolutionary response.