Riding an escalator: upward range shift and patterns of genetic response to climate change in Acer caudatifolium

Aim
Rapid global warming is threatening global biodiversity, and it will likely lead to varying degrees of local adaptation, particularly among plant species. Besides, rising temperatures frequently result in upslope distribution shifts towards climatic optima (i.e., the escalator effect) within a limited dispersal space, such as in insular environments. Here, we integrated ecological and genetic approaches to investigate how climate change will impact the genetic compositions and spatial distributions of Taiwan endemic maple Acer caudatifolium.
Location
Taiwan
Methods
We estimate the distribution range shifts of A. caudatifolium under climate change through species distribution modeling (SDM). We also use 368 genotyped samples to infer dispersal and genetic hotspots and quantify the contributions of geography/environments to genetic variations. We further assess the potential risk to A. caudatifolium under different climate warming scenarios.
Results
We detected three genetic diver...