FORGENIUS Public Webinars - Fourth edition

The FORGENIUS project will host the fourth edition of its Public Webinars on 7 May 2024 at 14:00 CET. The aim of this series of events is to bring FORGENIUS topics and results to a wider audience.

Our feature speaker, Dr. Thibaut Capblancq, is an evolutionary biologist working as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Grenoble, France. He will address the fact that species often exhibit intraspecific adaptive variation, and climate change will therefore not affect all populations with the same intensity. The integration of genomic information into predictions of species maladaptation to climate change is rapidly gaining interest in the literature to account for such intraspecific variation. One metric that has received particular attention is the genomic offset. Dr. Capblancq will present the genomic offset approach in detail, as well as its main applications and relevant limitations of the metric.

Project member Dr. Elia Vajana is a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute of Biosciences and Bioresources, CNR, Italy. He will talk about a recent study that analyzed 54 indigenous sheep breeds from Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East using advanced genetic techniques. This research identified genetic variations linked to local adaptation and predicted vulnerability to climate change. The study highlights genes linked to water retention and energy management as crucial for sheep to adapt to various climates. Interestingly, the analysis suggests southwestern Europe as a potential area of concern due to higher genomic vulnerability, warranting specific conservation efforts.

Join us to learn more about powerful tools that can predict species vulnerability to climate change and a real-world example.

We look forward to welcoming you to this webinar and sharing these experts’ perspectives!

FORGENIUS is an H2020 project, funded by the EU that will give an insight into the diversity of European forests and their resilience to climate change.