Genetic association studies in forest trees would greatly benefit from information on the response of trees to environmental stressors over time, which can be provided by dendroecological analysis. Here, we jointly analysed dendroecological and genetic data of surviving silver fir trees to explore the genetic basis of their response to the iconic stress episode of the 1970s and 1980s that led to large-scale forest dieback in Central Europe and has been attributed to air pollution. Specifically, we derived dendrophenotypic measures from 190 trees in the Bavarian Forest that characterize the resistance, resilience and recovery during this growth depression, and in the drought year in 1976. By focusing on relative growth changes of trees and by standardizing the dendrophenotypes within stands, we accounted for variation introduced by micro- and macroscale environmental differences. We associated the dendrophenotypes with single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in candidate genes using general linear models (GLMs) and the machine learning algorithm random forest with subsequent feature selection. Most trees at our study sites experienced a severe growth decline from 1974 until the mid-1980s with minimum values during the drought year. Fifteen genes were associated with the dendrophenotypes, including genes linked to photosynthesis and drought stress. With our study, we show that dendrophenotypes can be a powerful resource for genetic association studies that permit to account for micro- and macroenvironmental variation when data are derived from natural populations. We call for a wider collaboration of dendroecologists and forest geneticists to integrate individual tree-level dendrophenotypes in genetic association studies.

Bavarian Forest National Park Grafenau Germany

CzechGlobe Global Change Research Institute CAS and Masaryk University Brno Czech Republic

Dendro Science Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL Birmensdorf Switzerland

Department of Agricultural Food and Environmental Sciences Marche Polytechnic University Ancona Italy

Department of Ecology Faculty of Biology Philipps University Marburg Marburg Germany

Department of Geography University of Cambridge Cambridge UK

Faculty of Biology Conservation Biology Philipps University Marburg Marburg Germany

INRA UR Ecologie des Forêts Méditerranéennes Avignon France

National Research Council Institute of Biosciences and Bioresources Firenze Italy

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