Meeting Report on the Assisted Gene Flow and Climate Change Responses Workshop, Golden Gate National Recreation Area,...

Anthropogenic climate change is rapidly disrupting populations and ecosystems, challenging conservationists to identify effective interventions. Assisted gene flow (AGF), the human-assisted movement of species within their historic range to increase the population health of climate-threatened species, offers a promising but controversial strategy for enhancing resilience. To address the complexities of strategies for conserving species in anticipation of changing climates, we convened the Assisted Gene Flow and Climate Change Responses workshop from March 5-7, 2025, in Golden Gate National Recreation Area, California. The workshop was intended to be a forum for land managers, native seed producers, and academic scientists working in California and Oregon to discuss current and emerging knowledge of climate change responses, experiences, best practices, and policy associated with guiding ecologically informed applications of AGF in plants. The workshop brought together 28 participants, including land managers from five state or federal entities, native seed producers from two nurseries, and academic scientists from eight institutions. Through synthetic discussions, workshop participants identified major barriers to implementation, outlined critical outstanding questions, and proposed opportunities for coordination and joint action. The group reached an important consensus that while imperfect information remains, the risks of inaction are substantial, necessitating improved communication and immediate cross-sector collaboration to support land and restoration management in effectively implementing these strategies. Moreover, the group highlighted how restoration projects are evolutionary experiments that can be leveraged to address outstanding fundamental and applied questions, and the critical need for the development of evidence-based consensus guidelines to bridge the gap between research and application.