Quercus_havardii_Safeguarding_genetic_diversity

Assessing ex situ genetic and ecogeographic conservation in a threatened but widespread oak after range-wide collecting effort

Raw data and R scripts for analyzing Quercus havardii environmental data. This manuscript is in preparation to be submitted to the journal Evolutionary Applications. https://doi.org/10.1111/eva.13391

Overview

Although the genetic diversity and structure of in situ populations has been investigated in thousands of studies, the genetic composition of ex situ plant populations has rarely been studied. A better understanding of how much genetic diversity is conserved ex situ, how it is distributed among locations (e.g., botanic gardens), and what minimum sample sizes are needed is necessary to improve conservation outcomes. Here we address these issues in a threatened desert oak species, Quercus havardii Rydb. We assess the genetic, geographic, and ecological representation of 290 plants from eight ex situ locations, relative to 667 wild individuals from 35 in situ locations. We also leverage a recent dataset of >3000 samples from 11 other threatened plants to directly compare the degree of genetic conservation for species that differ in geographic range size.

Development

We welcome contributions from any individual, whether code, documentation, or issue tracking. All participants are expected to follow the code of conduct for this project.

Authors:

Bethany A. Zumwalde (BAZ)
Bailie Fredlock (BF)
Emily Beckman Bruns (EBB)
Drew Duckett (DD)
Ross A. McCauley (RM)
Emma Suzuki Spence (ESS)
Sean Hoban (SH)

Available Data and Description of Workflow

Below is a list of items used for environmental analyses in this paper.

Environmental Dataset

1. Raw Data
1. BailiePaperCoords.csv (Geographic localities used for bioclimatic analyses)
2. Scripts
1. BFPaper_QH_Environ_Final.R (Used to make environmental PCA)