The role of dispersal limitation and reforestation in shaping the distributional shift of a forest herb under climate change

Abstract

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Genomic analyses point to a low evolutionary potential of prospective source populations for assisted migration in a forest herb

“…Incorporating the functional connectivity of dispersal modes in MEM, increases the biological realism of spatial vectors (Bauman, Drouet, Fortin, & Dray, 2018 ; Ver Hoef et al, 2018 ). Therefore, the cumulative landscape resistances between plots (Van Daele et al, 2021 ), based on the resistance for dispersal of land‐use, distance to rivers and elevation ( R 2 marginal = 0.76, R 2 conditional = 0.92), were taken into account using a binary coding scheme following the recommendations of Bauman, Drouet, Dray, and Vleminckx ( 2018 ), Bauman, Drouet, Fortin, and Dray ( 2018 ). The resulting spatial weights matrix was used to calculate the orthogonal spatial vectors with a positive autocorrelation selection rule (broad spatial clustering; Dray, 2011 ).…”

“…Specifically, rapid climate‐change induced shifts of their potential distribution will exceed their adaptive capacity or their ability to migrate to newly available habitat (Kubisch et al, 2013 ). The strong fragmentation of forest habitats on the European continent makes forest herbs particularly susceptible to climate change due to local genetic erosion and loss of adaptive potential, and due to their limited dispersal capacity (Dullinger et al, 2015 ; Naaf et al, 2021 ; Svenning et al, 2008 ; Van Daele et al, 2021 ). Assessment of their adaptive capacity is therefore required to predict species‐specific vulnerabilities to climate change, and to devise mitigation strategies against climate change‐induced local extinctions across their range (Bussotti et al, 2015 ; Razgour et al, 2019 ).…”

“…Even though some studies integrated the adaptive capacity, genetic offset to climate change, and signatures of maladaptation to environmental stressors in tree species (Jia et al, 2020 ; Martins et al, 2018 ; Rellstab et al, 2016 ), we are unaware of studies that evaluated these factors in forest herbs in order to assess the potential and risks of assisted migration and other potential mitigation strategies. This is essential as forest herbs might experience a reduced amount of evolutionary pressures to climatic factors due to the micro‐climatic buffering capacity of forest ecosystems (Zellweger et al, 2020 ) and an increased amount of other local adaptation drivers (Baeten et al, 2015 ; De Kort et al, 2020 ; Van Daele et al, 2021 ).…”

“…Here, we aimed to assess signatures of selection (allele frequencies deviating from neutral expectations as a consequence of selective pressures imposed by the environment) and climate change sensitivity (as determined by the genetic offset and the genetic adaptive capacity) in Primula elatior , a self‐incompatible herb species representative for European moist deciduous forests. Due to its limited dispersal capacity, P. elatior is unlikely to track the shifting climate (Honnay et al, 2002 ; Van Daele et al, 2021 ; Whale, 1983 ), rendering its persistence under climate change predominantly dependent upon its adaptive capacity (Bussotti et al, 2015 ). We sampled 29 Primula elatior populations along a large latitudinal gradient to generate single‐nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) frequency data, using a genome‐skimming approach (Wessinger et al, 2018 ).…”

“…Primula elatior is expected to lose over half of the total distribution area by 2050 due to climate change and dispersal limitation(Van Daele et al, 2021). Furthermore, southern populations are expected to be most affected and therefore populations will be highly dependent on their adaptive capacity.…”