Landscape genomics provides evidence of climate-associated genetic variation in Mexican populations of Quercus rugosa Nee

Local adaptation is a critical evolutionary process that allows plants to grow better in their local compared to nonnative habitat and results in species-wide geographic patterns of adaptive genetic variation. For forest tree species with a long generation time, this spatial genetic heterogeneity can shape the ability of trees to respond to rapid climate change. Here, we identify genomic variation that may confer local environmental adaptations and then predict the extent of adaptive mismatch under future climate as a tool for forest restoration or management of the widely distributed high-elevation oak species Quercus rugosa in Mexico. Using genotyping-by-sequencing, we identified 5354 single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) genotyped from 103 individuals across 17 sites in the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt, and, after controlling for neutral genetic structure, we detected 74 FST-outlier SNPs and 97 SNPs associated with climate variation. Then, we deployed a nonlinear multivariate model, ...