Topography is a dominant driver of microclimate, soil conditions and disturbance regimes in mountain environments on various scales, and thus a key component of the specific landscape experienced by alpine plants. Over the last two decades, very high‑resolution digital elevation models (VHR DEMs; resolution ≤ 1 m) have transformed our capacity to quantify topography and its synthetic derivatives across nested spatial scales. T...

Genetic diversity is the raw material of evolution and is essential for adaptation and survival. Concerted efforts have been made under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) to incorporate intraspecific genetic diversity into national monitoring efforts. Much emphasis has been put on non-genetic proxies of genetic diversity, due to the limited amount of genetic data currently available on species and their p...

Microevolutionary processes shape adaptive responses to heterogeneous environments, where these effects vary both among and within species. However, it remains largely unknown to which degree signatures of adaptation to environmental drivers can be detected based on the choice of spatial scale and genomic marker. We studied signatures of local adaptation across two levels of spatial extents, investigating complementary types o...

We adopted a landscape-scale approach to analyze the genetic patterns (diversity, structure, and differentiation) of the Marbled White ( Melanargia galathea ). This butterfly species is characteristic of semi-dry grasslands, which have substantially declined in Switzerland during past decades. We sampled individuals on a regular grid of the established Biodiversity Monitoring program of Switzerland over five consecutive years,...

Throughout the last centuries, the structure and genetic composition of forests have been strongly affected by forest management. Over 30% of European forests are artificially regenerated, very often using translocated forest reproductive material, among these species the Swiss stone pine ( Pinus cembra L.). In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the species was largely used for artificial afforestation in the n...

Knowing which drivers affect the spatial distribution of hybridizing species and their admixed individuals on local or regional scale can leverage our understanding about processes that shape taxonomic diversity. Hybridizing white oak species ( Quercus sect. Quercus ) represent an ideal study system to elucidate which environmental factors determine their relative abundance and admixture levels within admixed forest stands. To...

Aim Knowing a species' response to historical climate shifts helps understanding its perspectives under global warming. We infer the hitherto unresolved postglacial history of Pinus cembra. Using independent evidence from genetic structure and demographic inference of extant populations, and from palaeoecological findings, we derive putative refugia and re‐colonisation routes. Location European Alps and Carpathians. Taxa Pinus...

Rapid human-induced environmental changes like climate warming represent a challenge for forest ecosystems. Due to their biological complexity and the long generation time of their keystone tree species, genetic adaptation in these ecosystems might not be fast enough to keep track with conditions changing at such a fast pace. The study of adaptation to environmental change and its genetic mechanisms is therefore key for ensuri...

Genetic diversity is a fundamental component of biological diversity, and its conservation is considered key to ensure the long-term survival of natural populations and species. National and international legislation increasingly mandates a monitoring of genetic diversity. Examples are the United Nation’s Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) Aichi target 13 and the current post-2020 negotiations to specify a new target for...

Motivation Trait variation within species can reveal plastic and/or genetic responses to environmental gradients, and may indicate where local adaptation has occurred. Here, we present a dataset of rangewide variation in leaf traits from seven of the most ecologically and economically important tree species in Europe. Sample collection and trait assessment are embedded in the GenTree project (EU‐Horizon 2020), which aims at ch...

The ongoing increase in global temperature affects biodiversity, especially in mountain regions where climate change is exacerbated. As sessile, long‐lived organisms, trees are especially challenged in terms of adapting to rapid climate change. Here, we show that low rates of allele frequency shifts in Swiss stone pine ( Pinus cembra ) occurring near the treeline result in high genomic vulnerability to future climate warming,...

It has long been discussed to what extent related species develop similar genetic mechanisms to adapt to similar environments. Most studies documenting such convergence have either used different lineages within species or surveyed only a limited portion of the genome. Here, we investigated whether similar or different sets of orthologous genes were involved in genetic adaptation of natural populations of three related plant s...

It is generally accepted that the spatial distribution of neutral genetic diversity within a species’ native range mostly depends on effective population size, demographic history, and geographic position. However, it is unclear how genetic diversity at adaptive loci correlates with geographic peripherality or with habitat suitability within the ecological niche. Using exome‐wide genomic data and distribution maps of the Alpin...

Conservation genetics is a well‐established scientific field. However, limited information transfer between science and practice continues to hamper successful implementation of scientific knowledge in conservation practice and management. To mitigate this challenge, we have established a conservation genetics community, which entails an international exchange‐and‐skills platform related to genetic methods and approaches in co...

Recombination and selection drive the extent of linkage disequilibrium (LD) among loci and therefore affect the reshuffling of adaptive genetic variation. However, it is poorly known to what extent the enrichment of transposable elements (TEs) in recombinationally‐inert regions reflects their inefficient removal by purifying selection and whether the presence of polymorphic TEs can modify the local recombination rate. In this...

Testing how populations are locally adapted and predicting their response to their future environment is of key importance in view of climate change. Landscape genomics is a powerful approach to investigate genes and environmental factors involved in local adaptation. In a pooled amplicon sequencing approach of 94 genes in 71 populations, we tested whether >3500 single nucleotide polymorphisms ( SNP s) in the three most common...

Landscape genomics is an emerging research field that aims to identify the environmental factors that shape adaptive genetic variation and the gene variants that drive local adaptation. Its development has been facilitated by next‐generation sequencing, which allows for screening thousands to millions of single nucleotide polymorphisms in many individuals and populations at reasonable costs. In parallel, data sets describing e...

Natural genetic variation is essential for the adaptation of organisms to their local environment and to changing environmental conditions. Here, we examine genomewide patterns of nucleotide variation in natural populations of the outcrossing herb Arabidopsis halleri and associations with climatic variation among populations in the Alps. Using a pooled population sequencing (Pool‐Seq) approach, we discovered more than two mill...