Phenotypic Plasticity of European Beech from International Provenance Trial in Serbia

Abstract

European beech (Fagus sylvatica L.) is a common forest tree species in Europe, distributed across environmentally and climatically diverse regions, resulting in wide natural diversity. Considering its wide distribution and the fact that it is drought-susceptible species, beech received a lot of attention recently, in the light of global warming. Consequently, the provenance trial will provide valuable information about genetic variation patterns of the species, the level of local adaptation to changes in environmental conditions as well as information about the amount of adaptive traits plasticity of the studied species within two research periods. The plastic response of provenance morphological traits depends on differences in climatic conditions of the test site and seed origin, showing changes only if the shift happens towards warmer/drier climate, where higher plasticity were showed in older plants within drier conditions. The presented result also show the existence of considerable genetic variation among European beech provenances, even between provenances that originated from the same geographical region, where genetic differentiation among studied provenances showed an ecotypic pattern. The results show that phenotypic differentiation among populations is not always obvious. The existence of significant genetic variation within and among studied provenances could be crucial to beech adaptations processes in terms of changing climate conditions.