Cold adaptation recorded in tree rings highlights risks associated with climate change and assisted migration.

ABSTRACT: With lengthening growing seasons but increased temperature variability under climate change, frost damage to plants may remain a risk and could be exacerbated by poleward planting of warm-adapted seed sources. Here, we study cold adaptation of tree populations in a wide-ranging coniferous species in western North America to inform limits to seed transfer. Using tree-ring signatures of cold damage from common garden trials designed to study genetic population differentiation, we find opposing geographic clines for spring frost and fall frost damage. Provenances from northern regions are sensitive to spring frosts, while the more productive provenances from central and southern regions are more susceptible to fall frosts. Transferring the southern, warm-adapted genotypes northward causes a s

SUBMITTER: Montwe D 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5913219 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature