Phylogeography and adaptation to environmental gradients in sugar maple

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The fast changing climatic conditions due to current global change pose a serious threat to the planet's biodiversity and to the ecosystem services it provides. In case of abrupt climate change as currently observed, species need either to adapt to their new conditions, or migrate into favorable habitats. Here I propose a comprehensive study to investigate the genomic adaptations driven by environmental factors in sugar maples, a species complex with a wide distribution in eastern North-America.Since several historical demographic processes can mimic natural selection patterns and complexify the detection of adaptive genetic variation, we will first investigate the phylogenetic relationships among various maple species, and conduct a comparative phylogeographic study of the black and sugar maples, two species or ecotypes with a widely overlapping distribution and known to hybridize naturally. Finally, based on the results of these preliminary studies, we will use a landscape genomics approach to relate environmental and genetic variation across the distribution range of the sugar maple, and to understand its adaptive genetic variation and its response to global climate change.It will be the first large scale study to investigate the genomic adaptations driven by climate in sugar maple, a dominant tree of temperate broad-leaf deciduous forests of north-eastern America with an important socio-economic value in eastern Canada. Understanding the capacity of maples to adapt to changing climatic condition is thus critical to guide the choice of seeds for reforestation and maximize the adaptive potential and resilience of maple forests in the face of global warming. Finally, this research project will contribute to the training of numerous highly qualified personnels to the state of the art methodologies in genomics. This is critical for the development of Canada's leading position in the fields of Biological, Environmental and Medical Sciences, including biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry.