Long-distance gene flow and adaptation of forest trees to rapid climate change

By A. Kremer, O. Ronce, J. J. Robledo-Arnuncio, F. Guillaume, Gil Bohrer, Ran Nathan, J. Bridle, R. Gomulkiewicz, E. Klein, K. Ritland and 3 more. Ecology Letters, 2012

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Forest trees are the dominant species in many parts of the world and predicting how they might respond to climate change is a vital global concern. Trees are capable of long-distance gene flow, which can promote adaptive evolution in novel environments by increasing genetic variation for fitness. It is unclear, however, if this can compensate for maladaptive effects of gene flow and for the long-generation times of trees. We critically review data on the extent of long-distance gene flow and summarise theory that allows us to predict evolutionary responses of trees to climate change. Estimates of long-distance gene flow based both on direct observations and on genetic methods provide evidence that genes can move over spatial scales larger than habitat shifts predicted under climate change within one generation. Both theoretical and empirical data suggest that the positive effects of gene flow on adaptation may dominate in many instances. The balance of positive to negative consequences of gene flow may, however, differ for leading edge, core and rear sections of forest distributions. We propose future experimental and theoretical research that would better integrate dispersal biology with evolutionary quantitative genetics and improve predictions of tree responses to climate change.

Subfields: Ecological Modeling, Genetics, Nature and Landscape Conservation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/242ae8d0855ea8eb67c77e38b0d2dd1f098cc733

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Citations in the corpus

Genetic divergence in forest trees: understanding the consequences of climate change (2014, background): “…predicts that the favourable contribution of gene flow to the adaptive tracking of climate change is dependent on the rate of environmental change, dispersal distance and migration rates (Polechov a, Barton & Marion 2009), and should be positive under most predicted scenarios (Kremer et al. 2012b).”
Assisted Gene Flow to Facilitate Local Adaptation to Climate Change (2013, background): “Most are wind pollinated and have relatively high levels of gene flow (Kremer et al. 2012); therefore, they are at low risk of strong outbreeding depression.”
Landscape Genomics: Understanding Relationships Between Environmental Heterogeneity and Genomic Characteristics of Populations (2017, background): “Arguments were made for understanding forest fragmentation on seed and pollen gene flow (Smouse and Sork 2004; Sork and Smouse 2006), evolutionary adaptation in forest trees (González-Martı́nez et al. 2006; Holderegger et al. 2008; Kremer et al. 2012; Sork et al. 2013; Lepais and Bacles 2014), and a”
Identifying targets and agents of selection: innovative methods to evaluate the processes that contribute to local adaptation (2017, background): “Furthermore, under rapid environmental change, gene flow could spread beneficial mutations (Bell & Gonzalez 2011), enhance genetic variation, and introduce pre-adapted alleles (Kremer et al. 2012; Aitken & Whitlock 2013).”
Comparative genetic responses to climate in the varieties of Pinus ponderosa and Pseudotsuga menziesii: Reforestation (2014, background): “Natural reproduction, despite problematic timeliness and stocking, might be suitable for lands inhabited to- day by climatypes suited for the future climates (see also Kremer et al., 2012).”
Potential for evolutionary responses to climate change – evidence from tree populations (2013, background): “…evidence of gene flow from like populations increasing fitness at warm rangeedges exists for some plant species (e.g., Mimulus species, Sexton et al., 2011), and long distance dispersal can be important in fragmented landscapes (Klein et al., 2006; Fayard et al., 2009; Kremer et al., 2012).”
Large frugivorous birds facilitate functional connectivity of fragmented landscapes (2014, background): “The ability of species to move to new ranges in order to keep within preferred climatic conditions is especially critical considering future climate change scenarios (Loarie et al. 2009; Hof et al. 2011; Kremer et al. 2012; McConkey et al. 2012).”
Temperature dependence of the reproduction niche and its relevance for plant species distributions (2012, background): “This is because trees are capable of long-distance gene flow such that within a single generation genes can move over large spatial scales (for review see Kremer et al., 2012).”
Large-scale recruitment limitation in Mediterranean pines: the role of Quercus ilex and forest successional advance as key regional drivers (2014, background): “, 2013); the study of gene flow over geographical ranges (Kremer et al., 2012); the consideration of individual predispositions to drought-induced mortality (Voltas et al.”
Hybridization as a conservation management tool (2019, methodology): “Timely adaptation to avoid extinction may require new genetic variation sourced from elsewhere via human-assisted interventions (Hamilton & Miller 2016; Hoffmann & Sgrò 2011; Kremer et al., 2012; van Oppen, Oliver, Putnam, & Gates, 2015; van Oppen et al., 2017).”
GENETIC ISOLATION BY ENVIRONMENT OR DISTANCE: WHICH PATTERN OF GENE FLOW IS MOST COMMON? (2014, background): “Gene flow has to extend far enough to cover predicted habitat changes within generations, and this may hold even in the case of trees with slow generation times (Kremer et al. 2012).”