Format: ORAL

Lauren A. Eserman-Campbell1, Amanda Carmichael1, Ethan Baldwin2, Chazz Jordan2, Ashlynn Smith1, Lilly Anderson-Messac3, Loy Xingwen1, Laurie Blackmore1, James H. Leebens-Mack2, Emily E. E. D. Coffey1

1 Department of Conservation & Research, Atlanta Botanical Garden, Atlanta, GA, USA 2 Plant Biology Department, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA 3 Torreya Keepers, Florida Native Plant Society, Florida, USA

Florida torreya, or Torreya taxifolia (Taxaceae), is one of the most endangered conifers in North America and is endemic to the ravines east of the Apalachicola river in the Florida panhandle. In the last century, populations have declined from nearly 700,000 trees in the early 1900s to around 800 trees today. This dramatic decline is the result of an invasive fungal pathogen, Fusarium torreyae. For the last 30 years, staff at the Atlanta Botanical Garden have been collecting cuttings for safeguarding, caging trees to prevent deer browsing, and tagging and monitoring wild trees in Torreya State Park and the Nature Conservancys Apalachicola Bluffs and Ravines Preserve. Recently, partnership with the Florida Native Plant Society has allowed outreach to private landowners to locate, tag, and collect cuttings of trees on private lands. Using the collection of trees from across its range, we are performing conservation genetic studies of Torreya taxifolia using target gene capture to assess the level of genetic diversity and population structure remaining in the wild. Conifers are notorious for having extremely large and highly repetitive nuclear genomes, making typical population genomic techniques such as Genotype-by-Sequencing (GBS), restriction site-associated DNA sequencing (RADseq), and genome skimming unfeasible. Gene capture, in contrast, allows for targeted sequencing of specific loci in the genome and allows us to overcome the problem of the large, repetitive genome structure. This method is a cost-effective way to obtain DNA sequence variation necessary to distinguish among closely related populations. Results suggest that the entire species range is consistent with a single panmictic population. In addition, private landowners hold significant genetic diversity in this species, highlighting the importance of landowner relationships.Together, these projects will advance conservation efforts for this critically imperiled conifer.