The project aims at estimating evolutionary changes on the sessile oak Genome at two timescale periods:
-The Lateglacial and the Holocene (since 15000 years ago) characterized by multiple short-term and long-term climate changes including a particularly steep temperature increase at the beginning of the Holocene (ca. 11 700 years ago) and a climate optimum reached during the mid-Holocene. Genomic changes will be tracked by comparing genome sequences obtained from macrofossils from different temporal contexts with a modern reference genome sequence.
-The Anthropocene that started at the time that was called the “Little Ice age”. The climate was indeed much cooler some three hundred years ago. Interestingly there are still oak forest that are of the same age and that have undergone cooler climate at their establishment. Evolutionary genomic changes will be estimated by sequences obtained from extant oak forest of different ages.