Late-spring frosts (LSFs) affect the performance of plants and animals across the world's temperate and boreal zones, but despite their ecological and economic impact on agriculture and forestry, the geographic distribution and evolutionary impact of these frost events are poorly understood. Here, we analyze LSFs between 1959 and 2017 and the resistance strategies of Northern Hemisphere woody species to infer trees' adaptations for minimizing frost damage to their leaves and to forecast forest vulnerability under the ongoing changes in frost frequencies. Trait values on leaf-out and leaf-freezing resistance come from up to 1,500 temperate and boreal woody species cultivated in common gardens. We find that areas in which LSFs are common, such as eastern North America, harbor tree species with cautious (late-leafing) leaf-out strategies. Areas in which LSFs used to be unlikely, such as broad-leaved forests and shrublands in Europe and Asia, instead harbor opportunistic tree species (quickly reacting to warming air temperatures). LSFs in the latter regions are currently increasing, and given species' innate resistance strategies, we estimate that ∼35% of the European and ∼26% of the Asian temperate forest area, but only ∼10% of the North American, will experience increasing late-frost damage in the future. Our findings reveal region-specific changes in the spring-frost risk that can inform decision-making in land management, forestry, agriculture, and insurance policy.

Agricultural High School Polytechnic Institute of Viseu 3500 606 Viseu Portugal

Białowieża Geobotanical Station Faculty of Biology University of Warsaw PL 17 230 Bialowieza Poland

Biology Centre of the Czech Academy of Sciences Institute of Entomology 370 05 Ceske Budejovice Czech Republic

Center for Biodiversity Dynamics in a Changing World Department of Biology Aarhus University DK 8000 Aarhus C Denmark

Center for Forest Ecology and Productivity Russian Academy of Sciences 117997 Moscow Russian Federation

Centre for Forest Research Université du Québec à Montréal Montreal H3C 3P8 Canada

Centre for Structural and Functional Genomics Biology Department Concordia University Montreal QC H4B 1R6 Canada

Centre for the Research and Technology of Agro Environmental and Biological Sciences Universidade de Trás os Montes e Alto Douro Quinta de Prados 5000 801 Vila Real Portugal

Computational and Applied Vegetation Ecology Lab Department of Applied Ecology and Environmental Biology Faculty of Bioscience Engineering Ghent University Ghent 9000 Belgium

Coordination Centre for Environmental Projects Polish State Forests 02 362 Warsaw Poland

Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development University of Utrecht 3584 CS Utrecht The Netherlands

Department of Agricultural Food Environmental and Animal Sciences University of Udine 33100 Udine Italy

Department of Biological Sciences University of Bergen 5020 Bergen Norway

Department of Botany Dr Harisingh Gour Vishwavidyalaya University Sagar Madhya Pradesh 470003 India

Department of Crop and Forest Sciences University of Lleida E25198 Lleida Spain

Department of Environmental Sciences Central University of Jharkhand Brambe Ranchi Jharkhand 835205 India

Department of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies University of Zurich 8057 Zurich Switzerland

Department of Forest Resources University of Minnesota St Paul MN 55108

Department of Forest Sciences Seoul National University 08826 Seoul Republic of Korea

Department of Geomatics Forest Research Institute Sekocin Stary 05 090 Raszyn Poland

Department of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management University of Copenhagen Frederiksberg C 1958 Denmark

Department of Sustainable Agro ecosystems and Bioresources Research and Innovation Centre Fondazione Edmund Mach 38010 San Michele all'Adige Trentino Italy

Division of Forestry and Forest Resources NIBIO Norwegian Institute of Bioeconomy Research NO 1431 Ås Norway

Faculty of Forestry and Wood Sciences Czech University of Life Sciences Prague Praha 6 Suchdol 16521 Czech Republic

Faculty of Forestry Department of Game Management and Forest Protection Poznan University of Life Sciences PL 60 625 Poznan Poland

Faculty of Natural Resources Management Lakehead University Thunder Bay ON P7B 5E1 Canada

Forest Ecology and Forest Management Wageningen University and Research 6700AA Wageningen The Netherlands

Global Change Research Institute Czech Academy of Sciences CZ 603 00 Brno Czech Republic

Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment Western Sydney University Penrith NSW 2753 Australia

Institute for Tropical Biology and Conservation Universiti Malaysia Sabah 88400 Kota Kinabalu Sabah Malaysia

Institute of BioEconomy National Research Council 50019 Florence Italy

Institute of Dendrology Polish Academy of Sciences PL 62 035 Kórnik Poland

Institute of Forest Ecosystem Research IFER CZ 254 01 Jilove u Prahy Czech Republic

Institute of Forestry and Rural Engineering Estonian University of Life Sciences 51006 Tartu Estonia

Institute of Integrative Biology ETH Zurich 8092 Zurich Switzerland

Institute of Integrative Biology ETH Zurich 8092 Zurich Switzerland;

Interdisciplinary Program in Agricultural and Forest Meteorology Seoul National University 08826 Seoul Republic of Korea

Joint Research Unit Forest Science and Technology Centre of Catalonia CTFC Centre for Research in Agrotechnology E25280 Solsona Spain

Key Laboratory for Humid Subtropical Eco geographical Processes of the Ministry of Education School of Geographical Sciences Fujian Normal University 350117 Fujian China

Lab of Forest Advanced Computing and Artificial Intelligence Department of Forestry and Natural Resources Purdue University West Lafayette IN 47907

National Center for Agro Meteorology 08826 Seoul Republic of Korea

National Forest Centre 96001 Zvolen Slovak Republic

Quebec Centre for Biodiversity Science Biology Department Concordia University Montreal QC H4B 1R6 Canada

Research Center of Forest Management Engineering of State Forestry and Grassland Administration Beijing Forestry University 100083 Beijing China

Research Institute for Agriculture and Life Sciences Seoul National University 08826 Seoul Republic of Korea

School of Biological Sciences University of Bristol Bristol BS8 1TQ United Kingdom

School of Life Sciences Weihenstephan Technical University of Munich 85354 Freising Germany

Section for Ecoinformatics and Biodiversity Department of Biology Aarhus University DK 8000 Aarhus C Denmark

Silviculture and Forest Ecology of the Temperate Zones University of Göttingen 37077 Göttingen Germany

Swiss Federal Institute for Forest Snow and Landscape Research WSL CH 8903 Birmensdorf Switzerland

Swiss National Forest Inventory Swiss Federal Institute for Forest Snow and Landscape Research WSL CH 8903 Birmensdorf Switzerland

Systematic Botany and Mycology Department of Biology Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich 80638 Munich Germany

Tartu Observatory University of Tartu 61602 Tõravere Estonia

Wageningen Environmental Research Wageningen University and Research 6700AA Wageningen The Netherlands

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