Resilience of genetic diversity in forest trees over the Quaternary

The effect of past environmental changes on the demography and genetic diversity of natural populations remains a contentious issue and has rarely been investigated across multiple, phylogenetically distant species. Here, we perform comparative population genomic analyses and demographic inferences for seven widely distributed and ecologically contrasting European forest tree species based on concerted sampling of 164 populations across their natural ranges. For all seven species, the effective population size, N<sub>e</sub>, increased or remained stable over many glacial cycles and up to 15 million years in the most extreme cases. Surprisingly, the drastic environmental changes associated with the Pleistocene glacial cycles have had little impact on the level of genetic diversity of dominant forest tree species, despite major shifts in their geographic ranges. Based on their trajectories of N<sub>e</sub> over time, the seven tree species can be divided into three major groups, highlighting the importance of life history and range size in determining synchronous variation in genetic diversity over time. Altogether, our results indicate that forest trees have been able to retain their evolutionary potential over very long periods of time despite strong environmental changes.

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Publication Details

Journal
Nature Communications
Published
2024-10-14
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-52612-y
Citations
39
Primary Topic
Ecology and Vegetation Dynamics Studies
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
26.95

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article

Resilience of genetic diversity in forest trees over the Quaternary

Pascal Milesi, Odile Rogier, Santiago C. González‐Martínez, Simone Scalabrin et al.
39 citations
Nature Communications
Ecology and Vegetation Dynamics Studies
26.95
article

Resilience of genetic diversity in forest trees over the Quaternary

Pascal Milesi, Odile Rogier, Santiago C. González‐Martínez, Simone Scalabrin, Marjana Westergren, Darío I. Ojeda, Sandra Cervantes, Benjamin Dauphin, Lars Opgenoorth, Francesca Bagnoli, Patricia Faivre Rampant, Stephen Cavers, Giovanni G. Vendramin, Chedly Kastally, Tanja Pyhäjärvi, Martin Lascoux, Sanna Olsson, Delphine Grivet, Katharina B. Budde, Félix Gugerli, Sara Pinosio, Christian Rellstab, Isabelle Lesur, Christophe Plomion, Ivan Scotti, Véronique Jorge, Bruno Fady
article en
39 citations

Abstract

The effect of past environmental changes on the demography and genetic diversity of natural populations remains a contentious issue and has rarely been investigated across multiple, phylogenetically distant species. Here, we perform comparative population genomic analyses and demographic inferences for seven widely distributed and ecologically contrasting European forest tree species based on concerted sampling of 164 populations across their natural ranges. For all seven species, the effective population size, N<sub>e</sub>, increased or remained stable over many glacial cycles and up to 15 million years in the most extreme cases. Surprisingly, the drastic environmental changes associated with the Pleistocene glacial cycles have had little impact on the level of genetic diversity of dominant forest tree species, despite major shifts in their geographic ranges. Based on their trajectories of N<sub>e</sub> over time, the seven tree species can be divided into three major groups, highlighting the importance of life history and range size in determining synchronous variation in genetic diversity over time. Altogether, our results indicate that forest trees have been able to retain their evolutionary potential over very long periods of time despite strong environmental changes.

Nature CommunicationsVol. 15(1)
Uppsala University (SE), CEA CESTA (FR), University of Helsinki (FI), Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (ES), Université de Bordeaux (FR), Philipps University of Marburg (DE), Université Paris-Saclay (FR), Science for Life Laboratory (SE), Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (CH), Institut National de Recherche pour l'Agriculture, l'Alimentation et l'Environnement (FR), UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (GB), Institute of Biosciences and Bioresources (IT), Slovenian Forestry Institute (SI), Écologie des Forêts Méditerranéennes (FR), UMR BIOdiversity, GEnes & Communities (FR), Nordwestdeutsche Forstliche Versuchsanstalt (DE), Norwegian Institute of Bioeconomy Research (NO), National Research Council (IT), Istituto di Genomica Applicata (IT), Helix (United States) (US), University of Göttingen (DE), University of Oulu (FI)
European Commission, Svenska Forskningsrådet Formas, Academy of Finland, Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich, Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, Javna Agencija za Raziskovalno Dejavnost RS, Vetenskapsrådet, China Scholarship Council, Uppsala Universitet, Ministerio de Agricultura y Pesca, Alimentación y Medio Ambiente, European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development, Ministerio de Agricultura, Pesca y Alimentación, Horizon 2020 Framework Programme, Uppsala Multidisciplinary Center for Advanced Computational Science, Biocenter, University of Oulu
Life in Land
Openalex Percentile: Top 0%
Ecology and Vegetation Dynamics Studies
26.95
DOIOpen Access PDFOpenAlex
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