Abstract

Climate change is a great threat to global biodiversity and has resulted in serious ecological consequences. Although the potential effects of climate change on genetic diversity have recently received much research attention, little research has focused on the impacts of climate change on genetic connectivity and the relationship between climate stability and genetic divergence. Here, we combined population connectivity with genetic data to predict the impacts of future climate change on genetic connectivity. Coupled with climatic variables and genetic data, we used POPS software to create spatially explicit simulations and predict the dynamics in genetic clusters in response to climate changes. A generalized additive model was employed to test the correlation between climatic stability and genetic diversification. Our findings indicated that a reduction in species distribution due to severe climate change would lead to a substantial loss of genetic connectivity. More severe future climatic scenarios would likely cause greater loss of variability or more distinct homogenization in genetic variation of species. Relatively low interpolated genetic distances are generally associated with areas of greater losses in climatic suitability from the present to the future. The displacement of climatic genetic clusters will challenge species adaptation to future climate change because of the loss of fundamental evolutionary potential. The persistence capacity of plant species may be weakened in the face of future climate change.

Highlights

  • Modern reliance on fossil fuels has caused unprecedented climate change, ushering in extreme temperatures globally and abnormal precipitation patterns in many regions

  • To forecast the impacts of climate change on genetic clusters of C. kousa subsp. chinensis, we evaluated genetic parameters based on the chloroplast DNA (cpDNA) sequences and nuclear microsatellite loci

  • Previous studies have reported that 52 of the 65 plant taxa in central and eastern China have experienced northward range shifts with an average of 3.37◦ over the past three decades, correlating with recent climate changes (Song et al, 2016), our results predict that C. kousa subsp. chinensis may expand to eastern China under both future scenarios examined here

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Summary

Introduction

Modern reliance on fossil fuels has caused unprecedented climate change, ushering in extreme temperatures globally and abnormal precipitation patterns in many regions (the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC, 2007; Sheffield and Wood, 2008) These changes have resulted in serious ecological consequences, such as latitudinal and altitudinal shifts in geographic ranges, altered phenology, disrupted physiology, and disturbed community dynamics (Harte and Shaw, 1995; Hickling et al, 2006; Parmesan, 2006; Springer and Ward, 2007; Lenoir et al, 2008; Anderson et al, 2012; Leonardi et al, 2012; Siepielski et al, 2017). There is a demand to explore the possibility of a mechanistic link between climatic fluctuation and genetic diversity to more completely predict the effects of climate change on genetic variation

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