Landscape genomics reveal that ecological character determines adaptation: a case study in smoke tree (Cotinus coggygria Scop.)

BACKGROUND: The adaptive evolution of species response to environment are the key issues in molecular ecology and evolutionary biology. The direction of adaptive differentiation of species in regions lacking strong selection pressure is usually diverse. However, the driving mechanism of the diverse adaptive differentiation for regional species is still undetermined to date. In this study, we used landscape genomics modelling to infer the adaptive evolution of Cotinus coggygria in China’s warm-temperate zone. RESULTS: Using fifteen natural populations and nine start codon targeted (SCoT) markers, a total of 1131 unambiguous loci were yielded. Our results showed two genetic groups existed in the fifteen natural populations of C. coggygria, which is due to the divergent selection driven by six environmental factors. Environmental association analyses revealed the environmental variables related to precipitation were associated with high numbers of environment-associated loci. CONCLUSIONS: Our results indicated that the ecological characters of C. coggygria, i.e. avoiding wetness and tolerating drought, determine its adaptive evolution. This study provides a reference that ecological character determines the adaptive evolution of species in regions lacking strong selection pressure. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s12862-017-1055-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.