Climate Adaptation, Drought Susceptibility, and Genomic-Informed Predictions of Future Climate Refugia for the Australian Forest Tree Eucalyptus globulus

Understanding the capacity of forest tree species to adapt climate change is increasing importance for managing genetic resources. Through a genomics approach, we modelled spatial variation in adaptation within Australian temperate Eucalyptus globulus, identified putative drivers this genomic variation, and predicted locations future refugia populations at-risk maladaptation. Using 812,158 SNPs across 130 individuals from 30 (i.e., localities) spanning species’ natural range, gradientForest algorithm found 1177 associated with locality home-site (climate-SNPs), putatively linking them adaptation. Very few climate-SNPs were population-level drought susceptibility, signalling multi-faceted nature complexity Redundancy analysis (RDA) showed 24% climate-SNP could be explained by annual precipitation, isothermality, maximum temperature warmest month. Spatial predictions RDA vectors allowed mapping genomically informed selective surfaces range under contemporary projected climates. These suggest over 50% current distribution E. globulus will outside adaptive 2070 at risk Such present new integrated approach resource managers capture plan translocations face change.