# Genetic diversity in Cyatheaceae in a stressful changing climate: a multi-omics review of adaptive evolution and conservation

## TL;DR

This paper reviews genetic diversity and adaptive evolution in Cyatheaceae tree-ferns, focusing on how multi-omics approaches can aid conservation in a changing climate.

## Contribution

The paper provides a comprehensive multi-omics review of Cyatheaceae, highlighting adaptive mechanisms and conservation challenges.

## Key findings

- Multi-omics approaches have revealed genetic diversity and lineage divergence in Cyatheaceae.
- Functional genes and sequencing technologies help explain adaptive responses to climate change and habitat fragmentation.
- Current research lacks sufficient integration and suffers from sampling biases.

## Abstract

Cyatheaceae, assigned to the fern order Eufilicales, is one of the most ancient extant lineages of arborescent tree-ferns and is widely distributed across tropical, subtropical, and parts of the temperate Southern Hemisphere. This group is ecologically, scientifically, and medicinally valuable. It serves as a critical bioindicator of forest ecosystem stability, provides an ideal model system for investigating adaptive evolution and stress response mechanisms in plants, and produces secondary metabolites with promising pharmaceutical applications. Recent advances in modern molecular biology have markedly promoted omics-based research on the family. Here, we systematically review multi-omics achievements—genomics, transcriptomics, and related fields—with emphasis on how sequencing technologies and functional genes have elucidated genetic diversity, cryptic lineage divergence, and adaptive evolutionary mechanisms in response to biotic and abiotic stressors, including climate change, habitat fragmentation, and interspecific competition. We summarize current conservation applications, highlight core problems such as taxonomic and geographical sampling bias and insufficient multi-omics integration, and propose future research directions so as to provide a scientific basis for the systematic conservation, sustainable utilization, and in-depth study of the genetic resources of Cyatheaceae under increasing environmental pressures.