TY - JOUR TI - Genomic basis for drought resistance in European beech forests threatened by climate change AU - Pfenninger, Markus AU - Reuss, Friederike AU - Kiebler, Angelika AU - Schönnenbeck, Philipp AU - Caliendo, Cosima AU - Gerber, Susanne AU - Cocchiararo, Berardino AU - Reuter, Sabrina AU - Blüthgen, Nico AU - Mody, Karsten AU - Mishra, Bagdevi AU - Bálint, Miklós AU - Thines, Marco AU - Feldmeyer, Barbara A2 - Schuman, Meredith C A2 - de Witte, Lucienne A2 - Schuman, Meredith C VL - 10 PY - 2021 DA - 2021/06/16 SP - e65532 C1 - eLife 2021;10:e65532 DO - 10.7554/eLife.65532 UR - https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.65532 AB - In the course of global climate change, Central Europe is experiencing more frequent and prolonged periods of drought. The drought years 2018 and 2019 affected European beeches (Fagus sylvatica L.) differently: even in the same stand, drought-damaged trees neighboured healthy trees, suggesting that the genotype rather than the environment was responsible for this conspicuous pattern. We used this natural experiment to study the genomic basis of drought resistance with Pool-GWAS. Contrasting the extreme phenotypes identified 106 significantly associated single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) throughout the genome. Most annotated genes with associated SNPs (>70%) were previously implicated in the drought reaction of plants. Non-synonymous substitutions led either to a functional amino acid exchange or premature termination. An SNP assay with 70 loci allowed predicting drought phenotype in 98.6% of a validation sample of 92 trees. Drought resistance in European beech is a moderately polygenic trait that should respond well to natural selection, selective management, and breeding. KW - Fagus sylvatica L. KW - genome-wide association study KW - genomic prediction KW - forest tree KW - conservation genomics KW - functional environmental genomics JF - eLife SN - 2050-084X PB - eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd ER -