Guillermo Friis, Nicola Cotterill, Nadia Barsoum, Marcia Webberley, Mohammad Vatanparast, Michael Charters, Rômulo Carleial, Richard Buggs, James S. Borrell
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引用次数: 0
Abstract
The United Kingdom aims to dramatically accelerate the establishment of new woodlands by 2050, yet the impact of different afforestation strategies on landscape genetic diversity and resilience remains unclear. This study integrates environmental data, whole-genome sequencing and phenotypic assessments to compare bioclimatic envelopes, genetic diversity and plant health indicators in naturally colonised versus planted populations of pedunculate oak and silver birch. We found that registered seed stands significantly under-represent the wild bioclimatic envelopes of both species, as well as those of 21 out of 39 UK native species assessed, potentially limiting adaptive diversity in planted populations. Yet, genetic diversity metrics (π, HO and AR) based on genome-wide markers in planted populations were comparable to naturally colonised woodlands. Planted populations exhibited higher within-group coancestry and moderate genetic homogenisation among sites, possibly reducing adaptive differentiation. Naturally colonised populations showed higher inbreeding coefficients (FROH) in both species, potentially due to fragmentation of source populations. Genotype–environment associations based on redundancy analysis revealed divergent selection at functionally relevant loci, indicating distinct selective pressures in commercial tree production versus natural colonisation. Health indicators revealed reduced browsing in planted trees, and differences in mildew and leaf-spot incidence, suggesting potential selection divergence between afforestation strategies. These findings support a role for both afforestation strategies in enhancing the resilience of future woodlands while highlighting pathway-specific risks of introducing unintended impacts on forest diversity.
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.
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