Towards adaptional genomics in Southern beech (Nothofagus spp.) in Argentina.

ESTRAVIS BARCALÁ, M.; SOLIANI, C; HEER, K.; ZIEGENHAGEN, B; MARCHELLI, P; ARANA ,MV

Göttingen

Congreso; 45º Annual Meeting of the Ecological Society of Germany, Austria and Switzerland: ?Ecology for a Sustainable future?; 2015

In the Southern Hemisphere, temperate Patagonian forests are distributed along natural environmental gradients that might be imposing different selection pressures on the native flora. Nothofagus pumilio (Lenga), endemic to these forests, is the most important timber species in Patagonia and the second in Argentina due to its huge distribution range and the quality of its wood. Particularly, the species is distributed across a wide latitudinal range (36° to 55° S), constituting also the tree line at high altitudes. Thus, growing in zones of contrasting thermic and photoperiodic characteristics it renders an interesting model for predicting the fitness of trees along with global change scenarios. Moreover, meanwhile in the northern regions (36 - 40° S) N. pumilio is found above 1000 m a.s.l, it inhabits both mountain and sea level zones at the extreme south (53 - 55°S), which coincides with the colder environments of these sub-Antarctic forests. This suggests a strong susceptibility of the species to growth in warm environments. The aim of this work was to characterize the genetic variation at candidate genes in populations of Nothofagus pumilio along its natural distribution area. In order to unravel possible climate-driven adaptation we studied patterns of variation in nucleotide sequences of genes potentially associated to temperature and photoperiod perception. In addition we will present the first results of the transcriptome sequencing (RNA-seq) performed to determine changes in gene expression between two different temperatures (20° and 34° C).