Restoration guidelines increasingly recognize the importance of genetic attributes in translocating native plant materials (NPMs). However, when species-specific genetic information is unavailable, seed transfer guidelines use climate-informed seed transfer zones (CSTZs) as an approximation. While CSTZs may improve how NPMs are developed and/or matched to restoration sites, they overlook genetic factors that can diminish restoration success and/or deteriorate natural patterns of genetic diversity and environmental factors thatmay introduce unexpected variation. Here, we analyze molecular data and geographic patterns of environmental variability across the western United States and demonstrate how they can refine CSTZs. Using genetic data available for 13 relevant plant species, we found that the probability of mixing genetically differentiated individuals (i.e. from different evolutionary lineages, or populations) was approximately 8% when considering locations separated by 50 km and reached nearly 80% by 500 km, which are distances relevant to ecoregionally constrained CSTZs. Furthermore, climate analyses revealed that geographically proximate locations are likely to maintain environmental similarity, regardless of CSTZ or ecoregion assignment. These results suggest constraining CSTZ-informed seed transfer decisions by distance may mitigate the opportunity for negative genetic outcomes. Furthermore, environmental variability and/or specificity of NPMs (depending upon the restoration strategy) should be achieved by sourcing NPMs from geographically proximate locations to avoid introducing excessive genetic differentiation. Our results highlight the utility of combining molecular genetic data with other genetic inferences (i.e. of adaptation) to determine how best to transfer seed across restoration species’ ranges and develop new restoration materials.

中文翻译：

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对种群遗传学和气候变异性的评估可以完善气候知情的种子转移指南

恢复指南越来越认识到遗传属性在迁移本地植物材料 (NPM) 中的重要性。然而，当特定物种的遗传信息不可用时，种子转移指南使用气候知情种子转移区 (CSTZ) 作为近似值。虽然 CSTZ 可能会改善 NPM 的开发方式和/或与恢复地点的匹配方式，但它们忽略了可能会降低恢复成功和/或破坏自然遗传多样性模式的遗传因素，以及可能引入意外变异的环境因素。在这里，我们分析了美国西部环境变异的分子数据和地理模式，并展示了它们如何改进 CSTZ。使用可用于 13 个相关植物物种的遗传数据，我们发现，在考虑相距 50 公里的位置时，混合遗传分化个体（即来自不同进化谱系或种群）的概率约为 8%，而在 500 公里处达到近 80%，这是与生态区域受限的 CSTZ 相关的距离。此外，气候分析表明，无论 CSTZ 或生态区分配如何，地理上邻近的位置都可能保持环境相似性。这些结果表明，通过距离限制 CSTZ 知情的种子转移决策可能会减少负面遗传结果的机会。此外，NPM 的环境可变性和/或特异性（取决于恢复策略）应通过从地理位置邻近的位置采购 NPM 来实现，以避免引入过度的遗传分化。我们的结果强调了将分子遗传数据与其他遗传推断（即适应）相结合的效用，以确定如何最好地在恢复物种范围内转移种子并开发新的恢复材料。