![]() It is said that this tree is often hollow by its 40th year, resisting rot and diseases poorly compared to most oaks. Common names for this tree are possum oak and spotted oak. Learn more about what The Morton Arboretum is doing to conserve oaks globally.One of the most common oaks I see in the Atlanta area is the water oak, or Quercus nigra. Researchers and conservationists at The Morton Arboretum are committed to ensuring oaks thrive. If oaks are lost, it will upset the delicate balance of forest ecosystems and leave humans without their benefits. Around the world, oaks are under threat, due to pests, diseases and loss of habitat. As both stately trees and dry-land shrubs, oaks are fundamental to the health of forests, providing critical food, habitat and shelter for animals, birds and insects, and have the highest amount of biomass compared to any other tree species in the forest, working harder to clean the air than many other tree species. Oaks support the planet's ecosystem like very few other tree species do. "The story of oak evolution is especially fascinating due to the ecological and morphological convergence in different oak lineages that cohabit on the same continent." Antoine Kremer from the French National Institute for Agricultural Research. "For the first time, this paper demonstrates that the history of different lineages is driven by different sets of genes," said co-author Dr. Over and over, oaks have taken advantage of ecological opportunity to produce the diversity we see today, providing humans with ships, homes, wine barrels, furniture and acorns to eat, and providing food and homes for countless insects, mammals, birds and fungi. The highest rates of species diversification have been in response to migrations into new territory. As oaks migrated, species interbred, hybridized and diversified opportunistically in response to changes in the landscape. All of these lineages can be found in part of their range with at least one other lineage. Red oaks, white oaks, ring-cupped oaks, turkey and cork oaks, and three of the other oak sections arose rapidly and segregated to either the Americas or Eurasia. In addition, this research shows that different oak lineages have repeatedly diversified in the same area. In other words, there is no one region of the genome that defines oaks: it is the patchwork of histories embedded in the genome that characterize the history of oak evolution. Investigating which parts of the oak genome distinguish species from one another, researchers at The Morton Arboretum, in collaboration with 17 institutions around the world, discovered that each gene or stretch of DNA in the genome has the potential to record multiple histories each section bears the history of speciation of one oak lineage, but it may record the history of hybridization for a different lineage. The study provides the most detailed account to date of the evolutionary history of the world's oaks. The new paper, to be published in New Phytologist, is available free through an Early View online for one month beginning October 14. "The changes in the global landscape have given us the gift of the oak diversity we observe today." ![]() "This paper demonstrates that oaks have repeatedly and globally diversified in response to ecological opportunity" says Hipp. Understanding the past of this ecologically, economically and culturally important group provides a baseline of knowledge that will allow scientists to address additional questions about oaks and other trees, as well as help with conservation efforts. Fundamental questions about relationships between organisms and the genes that drive ecological diversification underlie the secrets of biodiversity.
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