Can long‐lived species keep pace with climate change? Evidence of local persistence potential in a widespread conifer
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract Aim Climate change poses significant challenges for tree species, which are slow to adapt and migrate. Insight into genetic and phenotypic variation under current landscape conditions can be used to gauge persistence potential to future conditions and determine conservation priorities, but landscape effects have been minimally tested in trees. Here, we use Pinus contorta, one of the most widely distributed conifers in North America, to evaluate the influence of landscape heterogeneity on genetic structure as well as the magnitude of local adaptation versus phenotypic plasticity in a widespread tree species. Location Western North America. Methods We paired landscape genetics with fully reciprocal in situ common gardens to evaluate landscape influence on neutral and adaptive variation across all subspecies of P. contorta. Results Landscape barriers alone play a minor role in limiting gene flow, creating marginal geographically‐based structure. Local climate determines population performance, with survival highest at home but growth greatest in mild climates (e.g., warm, wet). Survival of two of the three populations tested was consistent with patterns of local adaptation documented for P. contorta, while growth was indicative of plasticity for populations grown under novel conditions and suggesting that some populations are not currently occupying their climatic optimum. Main Conclusions Our findings provide insight into the role of the landscape in shaping population genetic structure in a widespread tree species as well as the potential response of local populations to novel conditions, knowledge critical to understanding how widely distributed species may respond to climate change. Geographically based genetic structure and reduced survival under water‐limited conditions may make some populations of widespread tree species more vulnerable to local maladaptation and extirpation. However, genetically diverse and phenotypically plastic populations of widespread trees, such as many of the P. contorta populations sampled and tested here, likely possess high persistence potential.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".