Study may help foresters know the best trees to plant for changing climate
An international study, which includes a researcher from the University of Calgary, has found that two trees in Alberta and British Columbia use the same genes to adapt to different climates — a discovery that could have practical applications for the forestry industry.
The research, published Friday in the journal Science, studied lodgepole pine and interior spruce to determine which genes helped the trees adapt to varying climates throughout the two provinces.
“We sequenced genomes from many different species across the ranges,” said Sam Yeaman, an assistant professor in the U of C’s faculty of science who’s a co-author on the study. “We found that there were about 47 genes that were specifically helping these trees adapt to their environment in both pine and spruce.
“There were other genes that were involved that were unique to one or the other, but seeing the same 47 come up over and over again was really surprising and interesting.”
The research shows how the two trees, which are both common and used in forestry throughout Western Canada and the United States, deal with adaptation and also helps to explain some of the constraints in evolution.
“The trees are having to use the same genes over and over again because that’s just the best way to do it,” said Yeaman.
“It’s a neat window into how evolution works because these species have been separated evolutionarily for 140 million years.”
Practically, he said the ongoing research could help foresters to determine which trees to plant in a changing climate.
“Eventually what we hope to get towards is a cheap way to genotype trees and basically see what they have with these different genes so foresters can use that instead of trying to measure these really complex and hard-to-measure things,” he said.
Researchers were measuring cold tolerance, which he explained normally involves bringing the trees to a lab and cutting off the needles before putting them in a freezing cold solution to see how much the cells rupture.
“It’s very labour intensive,” he said. “If we can get a simple screen where you can just genotype the trees and predict how well they’ll do in cold temperatures, it would allow foresters to use that in breeding.”
There are breeding programs in both B.C. and Alberta to replace any trees cut down in forestry operations.
“They’re trying to pick trees that will do well in future climates,” said Yeaman, noting the research could help the breeding program increase its productivity and prepare for any changes in climate.
“They’re thinking right now about planting trees farther north ... but there’s this concern: how do you plant for the future climate when you still have to worry about the current climate? It’s still really cold and, even with climate change, it will still be very cold sometimes, so understanding cold tolerance is just as important as understanding drought tolerance ...”