Genetic diversity in candidate genes for drought stress. photoperiod perception and cold tolerance along environmental gradients: evidence of climate-driven local adaptation in Nothofagus spp from Patagonia

SOLIANI, C; ESTRAVIS-BARCALÁ, M; TORALES, S; POMPONIO, F; ZIEGHENHAGEN, B; ARANA, MV; MARCHELLI, P

Conferencia; IUFRO tree Biotechnology conference; 2015

Wateravailability, temperature and photoperiod are factors of outmost relevance forthe modulation of growth and development of tree species in their naturalhabitats. In view of the possible consequences of climate change, theunderstanding of the genetic basis underlying the trees? response to thesefactors is highly relevant. In the Southern Hemisphere, temperate Patagonian forests are distributedalong natural environmental gradients that might be imposing differentselection pressures on the native flora. Temperatureand photoperiod variations are mainly explained by latitude whereasprecipitation regimes vary from west to east. Therefore,phenotypic variation in several plant traits is probably the consequence ofdivergent selection pressures along species´ distribution areas that might reflect local adaptation. The aim of this work was to characterize the geneticvariation at candidate genes in populations of Nothofagus species distributed along natural environmentalgradients in the Patagonian Andes. In order to unravel possible climate-drivenadaptation we studied patterns of variation in nucleotide sequences of genespotentially associated to (1) drought stress responses in contrastingpopulations of Nothofagus nervosa andN. obliqua along the precipitationgradient and (2) temperature and photoperiod perception in populations of N. pumilio along its large latitudinaldistribution.