Genecologia e plasticità fenotipica in alberi forestali

Forest trees have intrinsic and extrinsic characteristics such that they can be considered as “model species” for studies of phenotypic plasticity. Nowadays, acquiring new knowledge on phenotypic plasticity appears extremely important in order to interpret and develop patterns of response of living organisms to global change. In fact, the phenotypic plasticity, that is the ability of one single genotype to express different phenotypes under different environmental conditions, constitutes one of the genetic-functional mechanisms which allows the species to persist responding to environmental variations. The study of intraspecific variation of forest trees led up to the development of genecology; it represents the study of genotype-environment interactions at the population level by “tests of provenance”, and which aims to understand the mechanisms of interaction of adaptive genetic variability and of natural selection forces.