Implicaciones evolutivas en un banco aéreo de semillas de un pino mediterráneo. Evolutionary implications in an aerial seed bank of a mediterranean pine

Abstract

Forests provide fundamental ecosystem services, including an important role as carbon sinks and maintaining genetic diversity. However, forest ecosystems are at risk under future climatic scenarios due to extreme climatic events including severe droughts, wildfires and pest and disease outbreaks. Facing these pressures, tree populations can persist through phenotypic plasticity, local adaptation or migration. Understanding the adaptive potential of forest species is of high relevance to predict the evolutionary responses of entire terrestrial ecosystems under a changing climate. The Mediterranean region is one of the most prominent biodiversity and climate change hotspots. Mediterranean vegetation is well adapted to stress and disturbances, displaying different strategies to cope with environmental changes. Fire is the most important disturbance in the Mediterranean basin and plays a key role in the ecology and evolution of species. To cope with recurrent wildfires, pine species in the Mediterranean region have developed different fire-trait syndromes related to resistance and resilience, targeting individual survival and/or enhancing post-fire recruitment...