Coping with Environmental Constraints: Geographically Divergent Adaptive Evolution and Germination Plasticity in the Transcontinental \u3cem\u3ePopulus tremuloides\u3c/em\u3e

Societal Impact Statement Syntheses clearly show that global warming is affecting ecosystems and biodiversity around the world. New methods and measures are needed to predict the climate resilience of plant species critical to ecosystem stability, to improve ecological management and to support habitat restoration and human well-being. Widespread keystone species such as aspen are important targets in the study of resilience to future climate conditions because they play a crucial role in maintaining various ecosystem functions and may contain genetic material with untapped adaptive potential. Here, we present a new framework in support of climate-resilient revegetation based on comprehensively understood patterns of genetic variation in aspen. Summary Elucidating species\u27 genetic makeup and seed germination plasticity is essential to inform tree conservation efforts in the face of climate change. Populus tremuloides Michx. (aspen) occurs across diverse landscapes and reaches from Alaska to central Mexico, thus representing an early-successional model for ecological genomics. Within drought-affected regions, aspen shows ploidy changes and/or shifts from sexual to clonal reproduction, and reduced diversity and dieback have already been observed. We genotyped over 1000 individuals, covering aspen\u27s entire range, for approximately 44,000 single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) to assess large-scale and fine-scale genetic structure, variability in reproductive type (sexual/clonal), polyploidy and genomic regions under selection. We developed and implemented a rapid and reliable analysis pipeline (FastPloidy) to assess the presence of polyploidy. To gain insights into plastic responses, we contrasted seed germination from western US and eastern Canadian natural populations under elevated temperature and water stress. Four major genetic clusters were identified range wide; a preponderance of triploids and clonemates was found within western and southern North American regions, respectively. Genomic regions involving approximately 1000 SNPs under selection were identified with association to temperature and precipitation variation. Under drought stress, western US genotypes exhibited significantly lower germination rates compared with those from eastern North America, a finding that was unrelated to differences in mutation load (ploidy). This study provided new insights into the adaptive evolution of a key indicator tree that provisions crucial ecosystem services across North America, but whose presence is steadily declining within its western distribution. We uncovered untapped adaptive potential across the species\u27 range which can form the basis for climate-resilient revegetation

The application gap: Genomics for biodiversity and ecosystem service management

The conservation of biodiversity from the genetic to the community levels is fundamental for the continual provision of ecosystem services (ES), the benefits that ecosystems provide to people. Genetic and genomic diversity enhance the resilience of populations and communities that underpin the provision of ecosystem functions and services. We show that genomics applications are mostly limited to flagship species and that their benefits for biodiversity conservation and ES management are underachieved. We propose a framework on how genomics applications can guide management for biodiversity conservation and sustainable ES to bridge this genomics-ES management ‘application gap’. We review how genomic knowledge in single species (relatedness, potentially adaptive variants) or in interacting species (host-microorganism coevolution, hybridization) can guide effective management actions. These include population supplementation, assisted migration or hybridization to promote climate-adapted variants or adaptive potential, control of invasives, delimitation of conservation or management areas, provenancing strategies for restoration, managing microbial function and solving conservation and ES trade-offs. Genomics-informed management actions for improved conservation and ES outcomes are supported through synergies between scientists and ES managers at local, regional and international levels, through the development of standardized genomic workflows, training to ES managers and incorporation of local information. Such actions facilitate the implementation of biodiversity conservation and ES policies such as the UN 2030 sustainable development goals and the EU Biodiversity strategy for 2030, and support the inclusion of ambitious biodiversity conservation goals in the development of new policies such as the CBD post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework or conservation policies on hybrids. Genomics Sustainable ecosystem services Biodiversity conservation Management goals Management actions Evolutionary processespublishedVersio

The application gap: Genomics for biodiversity and ecosystem service management

The conservation of biodiversity from the genetic to the community levels is fundamental for the continual provision of ecosystem services (ES), the benefits that ecosystems provide to people. Genetic and genomic diversity enhance the resilience of populations and communities that underpin the provision of ecosystem functions and services. We show that genomics applications are mostly limited to flagship species and that their benefits for biodiversity conservation and ES management are underachieved. We propose a framework on how genomics applications can guide management for biodiversity conservation and sustainable ES to bridge this genomics-ES management ‘application gap’. We review how genomic knowledge in single species (relatedness, potentially adaptive variants) or in interacting species (host-microorganism coevolution, hybridization) can guide effective management actions. These include population supplementation, assisted migration or hybridization to promote climate-adapted variants or adaptive potential, control of invasives, delimitation of conservation or management areas, provenancing strategies for restoration, managing microbial function and solving conservation and ES trade-offs. Genomics-informed management actions for improved conservation and ES outcomes are supported through synergies between scientists and ES managers at local, regional and international levels, through the development of standardized genomic workflows, training to ES managers and incorporation of local information. Such actions facilitate the implementation of biodiversity conservation and ES policies such as the UN 2030 sustainable development goals and the EU Biodiversity strategy for 2030, and support the inclusion of ambitious biodiversity conservation goals in the development of new policies such as the CBD post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework or conservation policies on hybrids.This article/publication is based upon work from COST Action GBiKE, CA 18134, supported by COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology), www.cost.eu. JG was funded by a JIN project (Ministerio de Ciencia, RTI2018-101274-J-I00), Xunta de Galicia (GRC, ED431C 2020-05 and Centro singular de investigación de Galicia accreditation 2019-2022) and the European Union (European Regional Development Fund - ERDF) and FEDER funds “A way to make Europe”. JMIB received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 891088. SBC was funded by an individual scientific employment program contract through Fundaçao para a Ciência e Tecnologia (CEECIND/01464/2017). RG and IP acknowledge funding through FRQNT #2018-265002. AVa acknowledges the support of the projects R2D (CIPROM/2021/001) funded by Generalitat Valenciana, and INERTIA (PID2019-111332RB-C22) funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation. TG was funded by the Slovenian Research Agency Research program P4-0107, and projects J4-1766, J4-3098 and J4-4547