Genomic structure and diversity of Quercus suber across its complete latitudinal distribution

Poster presented at the XX International Botanical Conference, Madrid, Spain, July 21–27, 2024.

Authors:

Melissa Viveiros-Moniz¹, Ángela Sánchez-Miranda², A. Jesús Muñoz-Pajares¹, Mohamed Abdelaziz¹, Luis Matías²

Affiliations:

1. Departamento de Genética, Universidad de Granada (UGR), Spain
2. Departamento de Biología Vegetal y Ecología, Facultad de Biología, Universidad de Sevilla (US), Spain

Abstract:

Drought conditions caused by climate change pose a threat to many plant species across the world. This global trend is prompting scientists to look at the potential involvement of local adaptations through intraspecific differences in functional traits, which could improve conservation methods by increasing plant resilience to the decreasing availability of water.

Cork oak (Quercus suber L.) is an economically and ecologically valuable woody species that is endemic to the Mediterranean region. For the last 80 years, the entire surface area of cork oak woodlands has been reduced from 140,000 ha to 70,000 ha. In recent years, there has been considerable research on the decline of Q. suber to understand how climate change impacts the distribution and viability of cork oak populations. Studies have shown that Quercus suber populations exhibit latitudinal variation in their response to different environmental stressors, including drought, which is possibly attributed to adaptations to specific environmental conditions. This evidence suggests that certain populations may have developed genetic variants that enable resistance to drought conditions prevalent in their specific latitudinal range.

Hence, this study aimed to characterize the genetic diversity of natural populations of cork oak and to compare genomic patterns across populations in a latitudinal transect covering the complete latitudinal distribution of the species. Particularly, we have sequenced the genomic DNA of a total of 97 individuals from seven populations to evaluate the genetic structure of the entire transect as well as the genetic diversity of every population. Our sequencing strategy also allows us to explore the genetic mechanisms involved in the different tolerance to drought conditions of the studied natural populations.