Authors: Heuertz, Myriam; Carvalho, Silvia;Galindo, Juan;Rinkevich, Baruch;Robakowski, Piotr;Aavik, Tsipe;Barth, Julia;Cotrim, Helena;González-Martínez, Santiago C.;Grebenc, Tine;

The conservation of biodiversity at all levels is fundamental for the continual provision of ecosystem services, ES. This is because biodiversity underpins ecosystem functions and services and enables the resilience of populations, services and communities in the face of uncertainty. Genetic and genomic diversity information is now increasingly used in applied biodiversity conservation thanks to the implementation of solutions to bridge the “conservation genetics gap”. We argue that a similar “application gap” exists for genetic and genomic information in natural resource management for ecosystem services. We review evidence on how genomic applications can be used to support management goals for ES through dedicated management actions based on genomic information in single species (relatedness, neutral vs. potentially adaptive variants) or in interacting species (host-microorganism coevolution, hybridization). These goals pertain to conservation and restoration questions, but also to the production of food and materials in ecosystems managed for sustainable productivity, to adaptive management in the face of climate change, to the management of invasive species and to the management of microbial diversity and functions to support ES from soils and potentially even oceans. We provide examples of management applications when available, and conclude with perspectives on genomics for ES.