Leveraging landscape genomics to predict genomic offset and inform conservation of Tetraena mongolica in a changing climate

Anthropogenic climate change poses a substantial threat to global biodiversity, expediting the rate of decline and elevating the risk of extinction for species across the world. Understanding the climate vulnerability and genomic diversity across landscapes undergoing rapid climate change, is therefore crucial for preserving biodiversity and informing conservation interventions. In this study, we attempted to characterize the patterns of genetic variation, and evaluate the range dynamics and genomic offset to anticipated climate change for Tetraena mongolica , an endangered species endemic to China based on 1,113 genomic-wide single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) derived from reduced-representation genome sequencing in 48 individuals. We further dissected the key environmental variables associated with genetic variation and predicted its range dynamics and genomic offset to future climate scenarios. Our results indicated that this species showed limited genetic divergence and weak population structure. Temperature- and solar radiation-related variables were pivotal in shaping the genomic variation of T. mongolica across its range. Moreover, the species' current range is likely to be at high risk of maladaptation to forthcoming climate changes. Our findings have implications for understanding the evolutionary trajectories of endangered species with limited ranges, and the strong signals of genomic offset presented to projected climate change could guide proactive managements and conservative decision-makings for this endangered species.