Wind patterns have the ability to shape genetic patterns in the world’s forests. Credit: Jocotoco Foundation
We most often think about ecological connectivity in landscapes or seascapes – in other words, the connectivity of what we can easily see. But what about the connectivity of air currents? “Windscapes” shape the ecology and evolution of many plant species, by determining where and how far seeds, spores, or pollen might go.
New methods that combine wind data and connectivity modeling can begin to answer questions about the role of wind in biogeography and spatial ecology. These methods have now been used for the first time to look at how wind patterns affect gene flow across the world’s forests. Researchers combined genetic data from 72 publications to look at 97 tree and shrub species across almost 2,000 populations. This genetic data was then combined with windscape connectivity models to determine how wind patterns shape genetic patterns in the context of gene flow, genetic isolation, asymmetric gene flow, and genetic diversity.
The results support the idea that wind patterns are both strongly directional and geographically variable, and almost certainly have an influence on forest genetics. Specifically, they support several hypotheses: that populations linked by stronger winds are more genetically similar, populations linked by imbalanced winds show asymmetric gene flow ratios, and downwind populations have higher genetic diversity. Wind-genetic relationships were almost entirely uncorrelated between hypotheses on genetic isolation, gene flow asymmetry, and genetic diversity, meaning that these genetic factors are independently shaped by wind patterns and not necessarily acted on simultaneously.
One implication of the research is that wind patterns are relevant to the management of forests, albeit over longer timescales than other changes such as habitat loss or fragmentation. However, many short-term changes in landscape composition have the potential to significantly alter the shape of forests, and therefore change patterns of wind flow over time. This makes wind geography yet another important consideration in forest conservation around the globe.
Resources
Kling, M.M. and Ackerly, D.D. 2021. Global wind patterns shape genetic differentiation, asymmetric gene flow, and genetic diversity in trees. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 118(17): .
