Oaks: an evolutionary success story

Abstract

Summary The genus Quercus is among the most widespread and species‐rich tree genera in the northern hemisphere. The extraordinary species diversity in America and Asia together with the continuous continental distribution of a limited number of European species raise questions about how macro‐ and microevolutionary processes made the genus Quercus an evolutionary success. Synthesizing conclusions reached during the past three decades by complementary approaches in phylogenetics, phylogeography, genomics, ecology, paleobotany, population biology and quantitative genetics, this review aims to illuminate evolutionary processes leading to the radiation and expansion of oaks. From opposing scales of time and geography, we converge on four overarching explanations of evolutionary success in oaks: accumulation of large reservoirs of diversity within populations and species; ability for rapid migration contributing to ecological priority effects on lineage diversification; high rates of evolutionary divergence within clades combined with convergent solutions to ecological problems across clades; and propensity for hybridization, contributing to adaptive introgression and facilitating migration. Finally, we explore potential future research avenues, emphasizing the integration of microevolutionary and macroevolutionary perspectives.

Medicinal Uses, Phytochemistry, and Pharmacological Activities ofQuercusSpecies

“…Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine Q. acuta (1) Q. glauca (1) Q. myrsinaefolia (1) Q. phillyraeoides (1) Q. resinosa (2) Q. salicina (1) Q. suber (3,4,5) Q. spp. (6) (1) [67] (2) [47] (3 Q. acuta (1) Q. alba (3,4) Q. faginea (3) Q. glauca (1) Q. myrsinaefolia (1) Q. petraea (3) Q. phillyraeoides (1) Q. pyrenaica (3) Q. resinosa (2) Q. robur (3) Q. salicina (1) Q. humboldtii (4) Q. petraea (4) Q. spp. (3) (1) [67] (2) [47] (3) [72] (4) [70] Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine 5 Q. acuta (1) Q. alba (3) Q. faginea (3) Q. glauca (1) Q. myrsinaefolia (1) Q. petraea (3) Q. pyrenaica (3) Q. resinosa (2) Q. robur (3) Q. salicina (1) Q. suber (4,5,6) Q. spp.…”

ddRAD Sequencing-Based Identification of Genomic Boundaries and Permeability in Quercus ilex and Q. suber Hybrids

“…Actually, hybridization and introgression are common in plants, where interspecific gene flow is supposed to be an ongoing process in approximately 25% of species (Mallet et al, 2016). Hybridization is especially frequent in certain taxa, as is the case of Quercus species, which have been proposed as models for the Ecological Species Concept (Burger, 1975;van Valen, 1976), and are commonly regarded as "syngameons" (Cannon and Petit, 2020;Kremer and Hipp, 2020). Temperate oaks from Europe and North America have become references for hybridization studies and they have shown that hybridization might be crucial to understand their successful evolutionary trajectories (f.i., Petit et al, 2003;Lepais et al, 2009;Eaton et al, 2015;Goicoechea et al, 2015;Ortego et al, 2018;Crowl et al, 2019).…”

“…This comparison suggests that hybrid mother trees can be fertilized by both Q. ilex and Q. suber pollen, although more frequently by the latter species, at least in the studied season ( Table 3). the Quercus syngameon (Kremer and Hipp, 2020). In this work, we have used ddRADseq methodology and have developed ad hoc bioinformatic pipelines to identify genomic variants that may shed light in the study of ongoing hybridization and genomic boundaries between Q. suber and Q. ilex.…”

Modern Strategies to Assess and Breed Forest Tree Adaptation to Changing Climate

“…Yet, genomics of adaptive radiations (Seehausen, 2004;Madriñán et al, 2013;Cortés et al, 2018a;Marques et al, 2019) are challenging (Schilthuizen et al, 2004;de la Harpe et al, 2017). Long-living oaks-Quercus (Plomion et al, 2018;Leroy et al, 2020b;Plomion and Martin, 2020) are a classical syngameon (Cannon and Petit, 2020) -a promiscuous network of weakly isolated species that has driven peerless historical (Crowl et al, 2020;Hipp et al, 2020;Leroy et al, 2020c) and current (Leroy et al, 2020a) adaptive introgression (Kremer and Hipp, 2020).…”