RESILPINE – Understanding the evolution of integrated phenotypes for the resilience of Mediterranean pines in a changing environment

Pine species dominate much of the Mediterranean forest landscape, but global change is significantly impacting their performance and survival. Drought and heat events associated with climate warming are synergistically interacting with forest management modifying forest fire frequency and extension. These factors combined with global trading also lead to greater biotic risks by exotic pests and pathogens along with range expansion of current threats to new environments and, even, new species. Due to intraspecific trade-offs and the structure of genetic correlations between life-history traits, extreme mortality events may lead to strong selection pressures in the surviving progenies and, potentially, to changes in the forest functional attributes. Here, we will examine the patterns of genetic and plastic variation and covariation among key traits that underlie the adaptive potential of the current genetic resources and the resilience of our pinewoods to this new environmental scenario.