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Landscape genomics and a common garden trial reveal adaptive differentiation to temperature across Europe in the tree species Alnus glutinosa
Author(s) -
De Kort Hanne,
Vandepitte Katrien,
Bruun Hans Henrik,
ClossetKopp Déborah,
Honnay Olivier,
Mergeay Joachim
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
molecular ecology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.619
H-Index - 225
eISSN - 1365-294X
pISSN - 0962-1083
DOI - 10.1111/mec.12813
Subject(s) - biology , alnus glutinosa , local adaptation , adaptation (eye) , genomics , ecology , evolutionary biology , alder , genome , genetics , gene , population , demography , neuroscience , sociology
The adaptive potential of tree species to cope with climate change has important ecological and economic implications. Many temperate tree species experience a wide range of environmental conditions, suggesting high adaptability to new environmental conditions. We investigated adaptation to regional climate in the drought‐sensitive tree species Alnus glutinosa (Black alder), using a complementary approach that integrates genomic, phenotypic and landscape data. A total of 24 European populations were studied in a common garden and through landscape genomic approaches. Genotyping‐by‐sequencing was used to identify SNP s across the genome, resulting in 1990 SNP s. Although a relatively low percentage of putative adaptive SNP s was detected (2.86% outlier SNP s), we observed clear associations among outlier allele frequencies, temperature and plant traits. In line with the typical drought avoiding nature of A. glutinosa , leaf size varied according to a temperature gradient and significant associations with multiple outlier loci were observed, corroborating the ecological relevance of the observed outlier SNP s. Moreover, the lack of isolation by distance, the very low genetic differentiation among populations and the high intrapopulation genetic variation all support the notion that high gene exchange combined with strong environmental selection promotes adaptation to environmental cues.