Using environmental and geographic data to optimize ex situ collections and preserve evolutionary potential

Area of Science:

• Conservation Biology
• Population Genetics
• Genomics

Background:

• Ex situ conservation aims to maintain biodiversity through seed banks and botanical gardens.
• Optimizing ex situ collections is challenging without genetic data, balancing cost, effort, and evolutionary potential.
• Geographic (isolation by distance [IBD]) and environmental (isolation by environment [IBE]) factors can inform population preservation strategies.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the genetic consequences of using IBD and IBE for ex situ population preservation.
• To assess how prioritizing source populations based on geographic and environmental distances impacts the capture of genetic diversity.
• To determine the effectiveness of these methods for preserving neutral, functional, and adaptive genetic variation.

Main Methods:

• Utilized 19 genetic and genomic datasets from 15 plant species.
• Assessed population genetic differentiation explained by IBD and IBE.
• Simulated ex situ collections prioritizing populations based on geographic distance, environmental distance, or both.

Main Results:

• IBD and IBE individually explained limited population genetic differences (10-16% and 1-5.5%, respectively).
• Together, IBD and IBE explained substantial genetic differences for functional (45%) and adaptive (71%) variation.
• Simulated collections incorporating IBD and/or IBE increased allelic diversity and genetic differentiation, especially for adaptive loci.

Conclusions:

• Prioritizing ex situ collections using environmental and geographic distance data optimizes the capture of genetic variation.
• These methods are invaluable for guiding the preservation of genetic variation for species lacking genetic information.
• This approach helps maintain the evolutionary potential of ex situ plant collections.