{"title":"Weak Local Adaptation to Climate in Seedlings of a Deciduous Conifer Suggests Limited Benefits and Risks of Assisted Gene Flow","authors":"Beth Roskilly, Sally Aitken","doi":"10.1111/eva.70001","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p>Assisted migration provides a potential solution to mitigate the increasing risks of forest maladaptation under climate change. Western larch (<i>Larix occidentalis</i> Nutt.) is a deciduous conifer species undergoing assisted migration beyond its natural range in British Columbia into areas that have become suitable based on climatic niche modelling. We established a seedling common garden experiment in raised beds in a warm location outside the natural range for three growing seasons, with 52 natural populations from across the species range and 28 selectively bred families from British Columbia. Intraspecific genetic variation in growth, phenology and cold hardiness was analyzed to test for signals of local adaptation and the effects of selective breeding to better understand the implications for assisted migration and breeding for future climates. We found weak differentiation among populations in all traits, with the proportion of additive genetic variance (<i>Q</i><sub>ST</sub>) ranging from 0.10 to 0.28. Cold hardiness had the weakest population differentiation and exhibited no clines with geographic or climatic variables. Selective breeding for faster growth has maintained genetic variation in bud flush phenology and cold hardiness despite delaying bud set. The weak signals of local adaptation we found in western larch seedlings highlights that assisted gene flow among populations is likely to have limited benefits and risks for mitigating maladaptation with climate change. Our findings suggest that assisted migration outside of the range and selective breeding may be important management strategies for western larch for future climates.</p>","PeriodicalId":168,"journal":{"name":"Evolutionary Applications","volume":"17 9","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.5000,"publicationDate":"2024-09-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/eva.70001","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Evolutionary Applications","FirstCategoryId":"99","ListUrlMain":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/eva.70001","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Assisted migration provides a potential solution to mitigate the increasing risks of forest maladaptation under climate change. Western larch (Larix occidentalis Nutt.) is a deciduous conifer species undergoing assisted migration beyond its natural range in British Columbia into areas that have become suitable based on climatic niche modelling. We established a seedling common garden experiment in raised beds in a warm location outside the natural range for three growing seasons, with 52 natural populations from across the species range and 28 selectively bred families from British Columbia. Intraspecific genetic variation in growth, phenology and cold hardiness was analyzed to test for signals of local adaptation and the effects of selective breeding to better understand the implications for assisted migration and breeding for future climates. We found weak differentiation among populations in all traits, with the proportion of additive genetic variance (QST) ranging from 0.10 to 0.28. Cold hardiness had the weakest population differentiation and exhibited no clines with geographic or climatic variables. Selective breeding for faster growth has maintained genetic variation in bud flush phenology and cold hardiness despite delaying bud set. The weak signals of local adaptation we found in western larch seedlings highlights that assisted gene flow among populations is likely to have limited benefits and risks for mitigating maladaptation with climate change. Our findings suggest that assisted migration outside of the range and selective breeding may be important management strategies for western larch for future climates.
期刊介绍:
Evolutionary Applications is a fully peer reviewed open access journal. It publishes papers that utilize concepts from evolutionary biology to address biological questions of health, social and economic relevance. Papers are expected to employ evolutionary concepts or methods to make contributions to areas such as (but not limited to): medicine, agriculture, forestry, exploitation and management (fisheries and wildlife), aquaculture, conservation biology, environmental sciences (including climate change and invasion biology), microbiology, and toxicology. All taxonomic groups are covered from microbes, fungi, plants and animals. In order to better serve the community, we also now strongly encourage submissions of papers making use of modern molecular and genetic methods (population and functional genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, epigenetics, quantitative genetics, association and linkage mapping) to address important questions in any of these disciplines and in an applied evolutionary framework. Theoretical, empirical, synthesis or perspective papers are welcome.