Editing Provenance (section)

==Science==

===Archaeology, anthropology, and paleontology===
{{anchor|provenience|Provenience|find spot}}
[[Archaeology]] and [[anthropology]] researchers use '''''provenience''''' to refer to the exact location (or '''find-spot'''<ref>{{Cite OED|term=find-spot|id=9308007328|access-date=March 26, 2025|date=December 2016}}</ref>) of an [[Artifact (archaeology)|artifact]], a bone or other remains, a soil sample, or a feature within an ancient site,<ref name="nps" /> whereas ''provenance'' covers an object's complete documented history. Ideally, in modern excavations, the provenience is recorded in three dimensions on a site grid with great precision, and may also be recorded on video to provide additional proof and context. In older work, often undertaken by amateurs, only the general site or approximate area may be known, especially when an artifact was found outside a professional excavation and its specific position not recorded. The term ''provenience'' appeared in the 1880s, about a century after ''provenance''. Outside of academic contexts, it has been used as a [[synonym]]ous variant spelling of ''provenance'', especially in [[American English]].

Any given antiquity may have both a provenience, where it was found, and a provenance, where it has been since it was found. A summary of the distinction is that "provenience is a fixed point, while provenance can be considered an itinerary that an object follows as it moves from hand to hand."<ref>{{cite book |first=Rosemary A. |last=Joyce |chapter=From Place to Place: Provenience, Provenance, and Archaeology |title=Provenance: an alternate history of art |editor1-first=Gail |editor1-last=Feigenbaum |editor2-first=Inge |editor2-last=Reist |date=2012 |page=48 |location=Los Angeles |publisher=Getty Research Institute |series=Issues & Debates |isbn=978-1606061220}}</ref> Another metaphor is that provenience is an artifact's "birthplace", while provenance is its "[[résumé]]".<ref name="Hirst">{{cite web |url= https://www.thoughtco.com/provenience-vs-provenance-3971058 |first=K. Kris |last=Hirst |date=December 22, 2016 |title=Provenience, Provenance, Let's Call the Whole Thing Off: What is the difference in meaning between provenience and provenance? |work=ThoughtCo |publisher=Dotdash/IAC |access-date=September 21, 2017}}</ref> This can be imprecise. Many artifacts originated as trade goods created in one region, but were used and finally deposited in another.

Aside from scientific precision, a need for the distinction in these fields has been described thus:<ref name="Hirst" />
{{blockquote|1=Archaeologists ... don't care who owned an object—they are more interested in the context of an object within the community of its (mostly original) users. ... [W]e are interested in why a Roman coin turned up in a shipwreck 400 years after it was made; while art historians don't really care, since they can generally figure out what mint a coin came from by the information stamped on its surface. "It's a Roman coin, what else do we need to know?" says an art historian; "The shipping trade in the Mediterranean region during late Roman times" says an archaeologist. ... [P]rovenance for an art historian is important to establish ownership, but provenience is interesting to an archaeologist to establish meaning.}}

In this context, the ''provenance'' can occasionally be the detailed history of where an object has been since its creation,<ref name="Hirst" /> as in art history contexts – not just since its modern finding. In some cases, such as where there is an inscription on the object, or an account of it in written materials from the same era, an object of study in archaeology or [[cultural anthropology]] may have an early provenance – a known history that predates modern research – then a provenience from its modern finding, and finally a continued provenance relating to its handling and storage or display after the modern acquisition.

Evidence of provenance in the more general sense can be of importance in archaeology. Fakes are not unknown, and finds are sometimes removed from the context in which they were found without documentation, reducing their value to science. Even when apparently discovered ''[[in situ]]'', archaeological finds are treated with caution. The provenience of a find may not be properly represented by the context in which it was found, e.g. due to [[Stratigraphy|stratigraphic layers]] being disturbed by erosion, earthquakes, or ancient reconstruction or other [[Disturbance (archaeology)|disturbance]] at a site.

Artifacts can be moved through looting as well as trade, far from their place of origin and long before modern rediscovery. Many source nations have passed legislation forbidding the domestic trade in cultural heritage. Further research is often required to establish the true provenance and legal status of a find, and what the relationship is between the exact provenience and the overall provenance.

In [[paleontology]] and [[paleoanthropology]], it is recognized that [[fossil]]s can also move from their primary context and are sometimes found, apparently ''in-situ'', in deposits to which they do not belong because they have been moved, for example, by the erosion of nearby but different [[outcrop]]s. It is unclear how strictly paleontology maintains the ''provenience'' and ''provenance'' distinction. For example, a short glossary at a website, primarily aimed at young students, of the [[American Museum of Natural History]] treats the terms as synonymous,<ref>{{cite web |url= http://collections.paleo.amnh.org/24/glossary |publisher=American Museum of Natural History |work=PaleoPortal Collections Management |title=Glossary |author=<!--Staff writers; no by-line.--> |date=2009 |access-date=September 21, 2017}}</ref> while scholarly paleontology works make frequent use of ''provenience'' in the same precise sense as used in archaeology and paleoanthropology.

While exacting details of a find's provenience are primarily of use to scientific researchers, most natural history and archaeology museums also make strenuous efforts to record how the items in their collections were acquired. These records are often of use in helping to establish a chain of provenance.

===Data provenance===
{{further|Data lineage}}
[[Scientific research]] is generally held to be of good provenance when it is documented in detail sufficient to allow [[reproducibility]].<ref>Altintas, I.; Berkley, C.; Jaeger, E.; Jones, M.; Ludascher, B.; Mock S. (2004) "Kepler: An extensible system for design and execution of scientific workflows". ''Proceedings of 16th International Conference on Scientific and Statistical Database Management'', pp. 423–424</ref><ref>{{cite journal|last1=Pasquier|first1=Thomas|last2=Lau|first2=Matthew K.|last3=Trisovic|first3=Ana|last4=Boose|first4=Emery R.|last5=Couturier|first5=Ben|last6=Crosas|first6=Mercè|last7=Ellison|first7=Aaron M.|last8=Gibson|first8=Valerie|last9=Jones|first9=Chris R.|last10=Seltzer|first10=Margo|title=If these data could talk|journal=Scientific Data|date=5 September 2017|volume=4|pages=170114|doi=10.1038/sdata.2017.114|pmid=28872630|pmc=5584398|bibcode=2017NatSD...470114P}}</ref> [[Scientific workflow system]]s assist scientists and programmers with tracking their data through all transformations, analyses, and interpretations. Data sets are reliable when the processes used to create them are [[Reproducibility|reproducible]] and analyzable for defects.<ref>Boose, E.; Ellison, A.; Osterweil, L.; Clarke, L.; Podorozhny, R., Hadley, J.; Wise, A.; Foster, D. (2007) Ensuring reliable datasets for environmental models and forecasts. Ecological Informatics, 2(3):237–247</ref> Security researchers are interested in data provenance because it can analyze suspicious data and make large opaque systems transparent.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Bates|first1=Adam|last2=Hassan|first2=Wajih Ul|date=2019|title=Can Data Provenance Put an End to the Data Breach?|journal=IEEE Security & Privacy|volume=17|issue=4|pages=88–93|doi=10.1109/MSEC.2019.2913693|s2cid=195832747|doi-access=free}}</ref>

Current initiatives to effectively manage, share, and reuse ecological data are indicative of the increasing importance of data provenance. Examples of these initiatives are [[National Science Foundation]] [[Datanet]] projects, [[DataONE]] and Data Conservancy, as well as the [[U.S. Global Change Research Program]].<ref name="Ma, et al.">Ma, X.; Fox, P.; Tilmes, C.; Jacobs, K.; Waple, A. (2014) Capturing and presenting provenance of global change information. Nature Climate Change 4 (6), 409-413.</ref> Some international academic consortia, such as the [[Research Data Alliance]], have specific groups to tackle issues of provenance. In that case it is the Research Data Provenance Interest Group.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://rd-alliance.org/groups/research-data-provenance.html|title=Research Data Provenance IG|date=11 September 2013|website=RDA}}</ref>

===Computer science===
Within [[computer science]], [[Information science|informatics]] uses the term "provenance"<ref>{{Cite book|last1=Tan|first1=Yu Shyang|last2=Ko|first2=Ryan K.L.|last3=Holmes|first3=Geoff|title=2013 IEEE 10th International Conference on High Performance Computing and Communications & 2013 IEEE International Conference on Embedded and Ubiquitous Computing |chapter=Security and Data Accountability in Distributed Systems: A Provenance Survey |date=November 2013|pages=1571–1578|language=en-US|publisher=IEEE|doi=10.1109/hpcc.and.euc.2013.221|isbn=9780769550886|s2cid=16890856}}</ref> to mean the [[Data lineage|lineage of data]], as per data provenance, with research in the last decade extending the conceptual model of causality and relation to include processes that act on data and agents that are responsible for those processes. See, for example, the proceedings of the International Provenance Annotation Workshop (IPAW)<ref>{{cite web|url=http://ipaw.info/|title=International Provenance and Annotation Workshop |website=International Provenance and Annotation Workshop |access-date=10 February 2019 }}</ref> and Theory and Practice of Provenance (TaPP).<ref>{{cite web|url=http://workshops.inf.ed.ac.uk/tapp2015/|title=TaPP 2015|website=workshops.inf.ed.ac.uk |access-date=10 February 2019 }}</ref> [[Semantic web]] standards bodies, including the [[World Wide Web Consortium]] in 2014, have ratified a standard data model for provenance representation known as PROV<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.w3.org/TR/prov-overview/Overview.html|title=PROV-Overview|website=www.w3.org}}</ref> which draws from many of the better-known provenance representation systems that preceded it, such as the [[Proof Markup Language]] and the Open Provenance Model.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://openprovenance.org/|title=Provenance Web Services|website=openprovenance.org}}</ref>

Interoperability is a design goal of most recent computer science provenance theories and models, for example the Open Provenance Model (OPM) 2008 generation workshop aimed at "establishing inter-operability of systems" through information exchange agreements.<ref>Moreau et al. (2008) The Open Provenance Model: An Overview, in J. Freire, D. Koop, and L. Moreau (Eds.): IPAW 2008, LNCS 5272, pp. 323–326, 2008. Springer. [http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.148.7394&rep=rep1&type=pdf]</ref> Data models and serialisation formats for delivering provenance information typically reuse existing metadata models where possible to enable this. Both the OPM Vocabulary<ref>Zhao, J. (2010) "[http://purl.org/net/opmv/ns Open Provenance Model Vocabulary Specification]", accessed 2016-04-09.</ref> and the PROV Ontology<ref>Lebo et al. (eds.) "[https://www.w3.org/TR/prov-o/ PROV-O: The PROV Ontology]", accessed 2016-04-09.</ref> make extensive use of metadata models such as [[Dublin Core]] and [[Semantic Web]] technologies such as the [[Web Ontology Language]] (OWL). Current practice is to rely on the W3C PROV data model, OPM's successor.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://khalidbelhajjame.wordpress.com/2013/04/04/w3c-prov-implementations/|title=W3C PROV Implementations: Preliminary Analysis|first=Khalid |last=Belhajjame|date=4 April 2013|access-date=10 February 2019 }}</ref>

There are several maintained and open-source provenance capture implementation at the operating system level such as CamFlow,<ref>[http://camflow.org/ CamFlow], a [[Linux security module]] by the University of Cambridge and Harvard University</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Pasquier |first1=Thomas |last2=Han |first2=Xueyuan |last3=Goldstein |first3=Mark |last4=Moyer |first4=Thomas |last5=Eyers |first5=David |last6=Seltzer |first6=Margo |last7=Bacon |first7=Jean |title=Proceedings of the 2017 Symposium on Cloud Computing |chapter=Practical whole-system provenance capture |series=SoCC '17 |date=2017|pages=405–418|doi=10.1145/3127479.3129249|chapter-url=https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=3129249&CFID=815806448&CFTOKEN=34069737 |publisher=ACM|isbn=9781450350280 |arxiv=1711.05296 |bibcode=2017arXiv171105296P |s2cid=4885447 }}</ref> Progger<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last1=Li |first1=Xin |last2=Joshi |first2=Chaitanya|last3=Tan|first3=Alan Yu Shyang|last4=Ko|first4=Ryan Kok Leong|title=2015 IEEE Trustcom/BigDataSE/ISPA |chapter=Inferring User Actions from Provenance Logs |date=August 2015 |volume=1 |pages=742–749 |language=en-US|publisher=IEEE|doi=10.1109/trustcom.2015.442|isbn=9781467379526|hdl=10289/9505 |s2cid=1904317 |hdl-access=free}}</ref> for Linux and MS Windows, and SPADE for Linux, [[Microsoft Windows|MS Windows]], and [[MacOS]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://github.com/ashish-gehani/SPADE |title=SPADE: Support for Provenance Auditing in Distributed Environments |first=Ashish |last=Gehani |date=8 February 2019 |via=GitHub |access-date=10 February 2019 }}</ref> Operating system level provenance have gained interest in the security community notably to develop novel intrusion detection techniques.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Han |first1=Xueyuan |last2=Pasquier |first2=Thomas |last3=Bates |first3=Adam |last4=Mickens |first4=James |last5=Seltzer |first5=Margo |title=Unicorn: Runtime Provenance-Based Detector for Advanced Persistent Threats |journal=Network and Distributed System Security Symposium |date=2020-02-26 |doi=10.14722/ndss.2020.24046|arxiv=2001.01525 |isbn=978-1-891562-61-7 |url=https://www.ndss-symposium.org/ndss-paper/unicorn-runtime-provenance-based-detector-for-advanced-persistent-threats/|doi-access=free }}</ref> Other implementations exist for specific programming and scripting languages, such as RDataTracker<ref>{{cite web|url=https://github.com/End-to-end-provenance/RDataTracker|title=An R library to collect provenance from R scripts.: End-to-end-provenance/RDataTracker|date=12 December 2018|via=GitHub}}</ref> for [[R (programming language)|R]], and NoWorkflow<ref>{{cite web|url=https://github.com/gems-uff/noworkflow|title=Supporting infrastructure to run scientific experiments without a scientific workflow management system.: gems-uff/noworkflow|date=19 December 2018|via=GitHub}}</ref> for [[Python (programming language)|Python]].

====Whole-system provenance implementation for Linux====
* PASS<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Muniswamy-Reddy|first1=Kiran-Kumar|last2=Holland|first2=David|last3=Seltzer|first3=Margo|title=Provenance-Aware Storage Systems|journal=USENIX 2006 Annual Technical Conference Refereed Paper|date=2006|url=https://www.usenix.org/legacy/event/usenix06/tech/full_papers/muniswamy-reddy/muniswamy-reddy_html/}}</ref> – closed source – not maintained – kernel v2.6.X
* Hi-Fi<ref>{{cite book|last1=Pohly|first1=Devin J.|last2=McLaughlin|first2=Stephen|last3=McDaniel|first3=Patrick|last4=Butler|first4=Kevin|title=Proceedings of the 28th Annual Computer Security Applications Conference |chapter=Hi-Fi |series=Acsac '12|date=2012|pages=259–268|doi=10.1145/2420950.2420989|chapter-url=https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?doid=2420950.2420989|publisher=ACM|isbn=9781450313124|s2cid=5622944}}</ref> – open source<ref>{{cite web|last1=Pohly|first1=Devin J.|title=Hi-Fi|website=[[GitHub]]|url=https://github.com/djpohly/linux|date=19 August 2013}}</ref> – not maintained – kernel v3.2.x
* Flogger<ref>{{Cite book|last1=Ko|first1=Ryan K. L.|last2=Jagadpramana|first2=Peter|last3=Lee|first3=Bu Sung|title=2011IEEE 10th International Conference on Trust, Security and Privacy in Computing and Communications |chapter=Flogger: A File-Centric Logger for Monitoring File Access and Transfers within Cloud Computing Environments |date=November 2011|pages=765–771|language=en-US|publisher=IEEE|doi=10.1109/trustcom.2011.100|isbn=9781457721359|s2cid=15858535}}</ref> – closed source – not maintained – kernel v2.6.x
* S2Logger<ref>{{Cite book|last1=Suen|first1=Chun Hui|last2=Ko|first2=Ryan K.L.|last3=Tan|first3=Yu Shyang|last4=Jagadpramana|first4=Peter|last5=Lee|first5=Bu Sung|title=2013 12th IEEE International Conference on Trust, Security and Privacy in Computing and Communications |chapter=S2Logger: End-to-End Data Tracking Mechanism for Cloud Data Provenance |date=July 2013|pages=594–602|language=en-US|publisher=IEEE|doi=10.1109/trustcom.2013.73|isbn=9780769550220|s2cid=504801}}</ref> – closed source – not maintained – kernel v2.6.x
* LPM<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Bates|first1=Adam|last2=Tian|first2=Dave|last3=Butler|first3=Kevin R. B.|last4=Moyer|first4=Thomas|title=Trustworthy Whole-system Provenance for the Linux Kernel|journal=Proceedings of the 24th USENIX Conference on Security Symposium|series=SEC'15|date=2015|pages=319–334|url=https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2831164|publisher=USENIX Association|isbn=9781931971232}}</ref> – open source<ref>{{cite web|title=uf_sensei / redhat-linux-provenance-release – Bitbucket|url=https://bitbucket.org/uf_sensei/redhat-linux-provenance-release|website=bitbucket.org|language=en}}</ref> – not maintained – kernel v2.6.x
* Progger<ref>{{Cite book|last1=Ko|first1=Ryan K.L.|last2=Will|first2=Mark A.|title=2014 IEEE 7th International Conference on Cloud Computing |chapter=Progger: An Efficient, Tamper-Evident Kernel-Space Logger for Cloud Data Provenance Tracking |date=June 2014|pages=881–889|language=en-US|publisher=IEEE|doi=10.1109/cloud.2014.121|isbn=9781479950638|hdl=10289/9018|s2cid=17536574|hdl-access=free}}</ref><ref name=":0" /><ref>{{Cite book|last1=Taha|first1=Mohammad M. Bany|last2=Chaisiri|first2=Sivadon|last3=Ko|first3=Ryan K. L.|title=2015 IEEE Trustcom/BigDataSE/ISPA |chapter=Trusted Tamper-Evident Data Provenance |date=August 2015|pages=646–653|language=en-US|publisher=IEEE|doi=10.1109/trustcom.2015.430|isbn=9781467379526|s2cid=10720318}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last1=Garae|first1=Jeffery|last2=Ko|first2=Ryan K.L.|last3=Chaisiri|first3=Sivadon|title=2016 IEEE Trustcom/BigDataSE/ISPA |chapter=UVisP: User-centric Visualization of Data Provenance with Gestalt Principles |date=August 2016|pages=1923–1930|language=en-US|publisher=IEEE|doi=10.1109/trustcom.2016.0294|isbn=9781509032051|hdl=10289/10996|s2cid=11231512|hdl-access=free}}</ref> – open source<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://github.com/CROWLaboratory/Progger|title=CROWLaboratory/Progger|website=GitHub|language=en|access-date=2018-08-04}}</ref> – not maintained – kernel v2.6.x and kernel v.4.14.x
* CamFlow<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Pasquier|first1=Thomas|last2=Singh|first2=Jatinder|last3=Eyers|first3=David|last4=Bacon|first4=Jean|title=Camflow: Managed Data-Sharing for Cloud Services|journal=IEEE Transactions on Cloud Computing|date=2015|volume=5|issue=3|pages=472–484|doi=10.1109/TCC.2015.2489211|arxiv=1506.04391|bibcode=2015arXiv150604391P|s2cid=11537746}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last1=Pasquier|first1=Thomas|last2=Han|first2=Xueyuan|last3=Goldstein|first3=Mark|last4=Moyer|first4=Thomas|last5=Eyers|first5=David|last6=Seltzer|first6=Margo|last7=Bacon|first7=Jean|title=Proceedings of the 2017 Symposium on Cloud Computing |chapter=Practical whole-system provenance capture |series=SoCC '17|date=2017|pages=405–418|doi=10.1145/3127479.3129249|chapter-url=https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=3129249&CFID=829730322&CFTOKEN=15897970|publisher=ACM|isbn=9781450350280|arxiv=1711.05296|bibcode=2017arXiv171105296P|s2cid=4885447}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Pasquier |first1=Thomas |last2=Han |first2=Xueyuan |last3=Moyer |first3=Thomas |last4=Bates |first4=Adam |last5=Hermant |first5=Olivier |last6=Eyers |first6=David |last7=Bacon |first7=Jean |last8=Seltzer |first8=Margo |title=Runtime Analysis of Whole-System Provenance |journal=25th ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security |date=14 October 2018 |arxiv=1808.06049 |bibcode=2018arXiv180806049P }}</ref> – open source<ref>{{cite web|title=CamFlow: Practical Linux Provenance|url=http://camflow.org/|website=camflow.org}}</ref> – maintained – kernel v6.0.X

===Petrology===
{{See also|Provenance (geology)}}
[[Image:QFLtriangle.svg|thumb|upright=1.25|A [[QFL diagram]] ([[quartz]], [[feldspar]], [[lithic fragment]]s) used to determine [[tectonic]] provenance in sandstones]]
In the [[geologic]] use of the term, provenance instead refers to the origin or source area of particles within a rock, most commonly in [[sedimentary rocks]]. It does not refer to the circumstances of the collection of the rock. The provenance of sandstone, in particular, can be evaluated by determining the proportion of quartz, feldspar, and lithic fragments (see diagram).

===Seed provenance===
Seed provenance refers to the geographic location of a parent plant, from which seeds were collected. In the context of ecological restoration, [[Seed Provenancing|seed provenancing]] refers to a seed-sourcing strategy that focuses on the geographic location of seed sources, as each provenance can describe the genetic material from that location.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Breed |first1=Martin F |last2=Harrison |first2=Peter A |last3=Bischoff |first3=Armin |last4=Durruty |first4=Paula |last5=Gellie |first5=Nick J C |last6=Gonzales |first6=Emily K |last7=Havens |first7=Kayri |author-link7=Kayri Havens |last8=Karmann |first8=Marion |last9=Kilkenny |first9=Francis F |last10=Krauss |first10=Siegfried L |last11=Lowe |first11=Andrew J |last12=Marques |first12=Pedro |last13=Nevill |first13=Paul G |last14=Vitt |first14=Pati L |last15=Bucharova |first15=Anna |date=2018-06-13 |title=Priority Actions to Improve Provenance Decision-Making |url=https://doi.org/10.1093/biosci/biy050 |journal=BioScience |volume=68 |issue=7 |pages=510–516 |doi=10.1093/biosci/biy050 |issn=0006-3568}}</ref> Local provenancing is a position maintained by ecologists that suggests that only seeds of local provenance should be planted in a particular area. However, this view depends on the [[adaptationist program]] – a view that populations are universally locally adapted.<ref>Gould S. J.; Lewontin; R. C. (1979). "The Spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian Paradigm: A Critique of the Adaptationist Programme". ''Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Series B: Biological Sciences'', 205: 581-598</ref> It is maintained that local seed is best [[Adaptation|adapted]] to local conditions, and that [[outbreeding depression]] will be avoided. [[Evolutionary biologists]] suggest that strict adherence to provenance collecting is not a wise decision because:
# Local adaptation is not as common as assumed.<ref name="Gould & Lewontin 1979">Gould & Lewontin 1979</ref>
# Background population [[maladaptation]] can be driven by natural processes.<ref name="Gould & Lewontin 1979"/>
# Human actions of [[habitat fragmentation]] drive maladaptation up and adaptive potential down.<ref>Willi Y, Van Buskirk J, Hoffmann AA (2006) Limits to the adaptive potential of small populations. Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics 37: 433-458.</ref>
# [[Natural selection]] is changing rapidly due to [[climate change]].<ref>Parmesan C (2006) Ecological and evolutionary responses to recent climate change. Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics 37: 637-669.</ref> and habitat fragmentation
# Population fragments are unlikely to divergence by natural selection since fragmentation (<&nbsp;500 years). This leads to a low risk of outbreeding depression.<ref>Frankham R, Ballou J, Eldridge M, Lacy R, Ralls K, et al. (2011) Predicting the probability of outbreeding depression. Conservation Biology.</ref>

Provenance trials, where material of different provenances are planted in a single place or at different locations spanning a range of environmental conditions, is a way to reveal [[genetic variation]] among provenances. It also contributes to an understanding of how different provenances respond to various climatic and environmental conditions and can as such contribute with knowledge on how to strategically select provenances for [[climate change adaptation]].<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Konnert, M., Fady, B., Gömöry, D., A'Hara, S., Wolter, F., Ducci, F. Koskela, J., Bozzano, M., Maaten, T. and Kowalczyk, J.|title=Use and transfer of forest reproductive material in Europe in the context of climate change|journal=European Forest Genetic Resources Programme (EUFORGEN), Bioversity International, Rome, Italy|date=2015|page=xvi and 75 p|url=http://www.euforgen.org/fileadmin/templates/euforgen.org/upload/Publications/Thematic_publications/EUFORGEN_FRM_use_transfer.pdf}}</ref>