Yeaman, S., Hodgins, K.A., Lotterhos, K.E., Suren, H., Nadeau, S., Degner, J.C., Nurkowski, K.A., Smets, P., Wang, T.,
Gray, L.K.,
Liepe, K.J.,
Hamann, A., Holliday, J.A., Whitlock, M.C., Rieseberg, L.H. & Aitken, S.N. 2016. Convergent local adaptation to climate in distantly related conifers.
Science 353:1431–1433.
Science Perspectives companion piece: Hancock, A. M. 2016. How conifers adapt to the cold.
Science 353: 1362–1363.
We usually assume that adaptation to climate is complex and involves many traits, many genes and many gene variants, allowing evolution to find a great variety of ways for trees to thrive under various environmental conditions. Here we show that even after evolving independently for 140 million years, lodgepole pine and interior spruce use a limited number and a high proportion of shared genes to adapt to the climate in which they live. The findings suggest that trees may be more restricted in their ability to adapt to climate than expected.