Native trees adapt to the climate and environmental conditions of their area to survive.
Native trees adapt to the climate and environmental conditions of their area to survive. Researchers in the College of Natural Resources and Environment in collaboration with the American Chestnut Foundation confirmed this by examining the genome of American chestnut trees sampled throughout the Appalachian Mountain range and grouping the samples according to their specific environmental region.
The research, recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal, has the potential to help the foundation restore the American chestnut population and adjust breeding to the changing climate.
“To understand historical local adaptation to climate, we sequenced the genomes of many wild chestnut stump sprouts and identified relationships between the genome in these different places and the environment of those places,” said Jason Holliday, professor in the Department of Forest Resources and Environmental Conservation.
Read more at: Virginia Tech
An American chestnut tree (in foreground). (Photo Credit: the American Chestnut Foundation)
