Genomic forecasting links climate-associated variation to spring phenology in the European wild apple, a crop wild relative of the cultivated apple

In Malus sylvestris, SNP-based genomic offsets predicted bud-break timing in a Saclay common garden (marginal R2 = 0.31), linking climate-associated variation to spring phenology.

• Why it matters: Climate-linked genomic variation is used to infer adaptive potential, but its phenotypic consequences and predictive validity are rarely tested in long-lived species beyond demography.
• What they did: Using whole-genome resequencing of 148 accessions, they combined landscape genomics, genome-wide association, and genomic offset modeling with common-garden phenotyping, focusing on SNPs, TIPs, and glacial climate.
• The result: Higher SNP offsets corresponded to earlier bud break, but the signal depended on Austrian and Romanian populations and was strongest in non-admixed wild individuals; TIP- and glacial-based offsets did not predict measured traits.

AI summary of the abstract · may contain errors · not medical advice · read the paper.