A Comparison of Genetic Diversity and Phenotypic Plasticity among European Beech (Fagus sylvatica L.) Populations from Bulgaria and Germany under Drought and Temperature Manipulation

Premise of research. In the future, ecosystems will have to deal with climate warming in combination with increasing frequency and magnitude of extreme weather events such as drought. Adaptive phenotypic plasticity enables plants to respond to environmental variability and is likely to buffer impacts of climate change. Therefore, factors that influence the phenotypic plasticity of plant populations must be identified to assess climate change outcomes and support conservation measures. Genetic diversity in many temperate plant species is known to vary among regions and populations, largely as a result of their phylogeographic history during the late Pleistocene and Holocene. Here, we argue that high (neutral) genetic diversity of populations might represent increased probability of possessing alleles or allele combinations that are advantageous or more capable in terms of average response capacities to environmental change. Methodology. We test this idea for European beech (Fagus sylvatica) by investigatin...