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408 results for “Plant population”
Data from: Genome-wide search for quantitative trait loci controlling important plant and flower traits in petunia using an interspecific recombinant inbred population of Petunia axillaris and Petunia exserta
A major bottleneck in plant breeding has been the much limited genetic base and much reduced genetic diversity in domesticated, cultivated germplasm. Identification and utilization of favorable gene loci or alleles from wild or progenitor species can serve as an effective approach to increasing genetic diversity and breaking this bottleneck in plant breeding. This study was conducted to identify quantitative trait loci (QTL) in wild or progenitor petunia species that can be used to improve important horticultural traits in garden petunia. An F7 recombinant inbred population derived between Petunia axillaris and P. exserta was phenotyped for plant height, plant spread, plant size, flower counts, flower diameter, flower length, and days to anthesis, in Florida in two consecutive years. Transgressive segregation was observed for all seven traits in both years. The broad-sense heritability estimates for the traits ranged from 0.20 (days to anthesis) to 0.62 (flower length). A genome-wide genetic linkage map consisting 368 single nucleotide polymorphism bins and extending over 277 cM was searched to identify QTL for these traits. Nineteen QTL were identified and localized to five linkage groups. Eleven of the loci were identified consistently in both years; several loci explained up to 34.0% and 24.1% of the phenotypic variance for flower length and flower diameter, respectively. Multiple loci controlling different traits are co-localized in four intervals in four linkage groups. These intervals contain desirable alleles that can be introgressed into commercial petunia germplasm to expand the genetic base and improve plant performance and flower characteristics in petunia.
Biotic and anthropogenic forces rival climatic/abiotic factors in determining global plant population growth and fitness
<p>Multiple, simultaneous environmental changes, in climatic/abiotic factors, in interacting species, and in direct human influences, are impacting natural populations and thus biodiversity, ecosystem services, and evolutionary trajectories. Determining whether the magnitudes of the population impacts of abiotic, biotic, and anthropogenic drivers differ, accounting for their direct effects and effects mediated through other drivers, would allow us to better predict population fates and design mitigation strategies. We compiled 644 paired values of the population growth rate (lambda) from high and low levels of an identified driver from demographic studies of terrestrial plants. Among abiotic drivers, natural disturbance (not climate), and among biotic drivers, interactions with neighboring plants had the strongest effects on lambda. However, when drivers were combined into the three main types, their average effects on lambda did not differ. For the subset of studies that measured both the average and variability of the driver, lambda was more sensitive to one standard deviation of change in abiotic drivers relative to biotic drivers, but sensitivity to biotic drivers was still substantial. Similar impact magnitudes for abiotic/biotic/anthropogenic drivers holds for plants of different growth forms, for different latitudinal zones, and for biomes characterized by harsher or milder abiotic conditions, suggesting that all three drivers have equivalent impacts across a variety of contexts. Thus the best available information about the integrated effects of drivers on all demographic rates provides no justification for ignoring drivers of any of these three types when projecting ecological and evolutionary responses of populations and of biodiversity to environmental changes.</p>
Population-specific responses of an insect herbivore to variation in host-plant quality
<p>Anthropogenic climate change poses a substantial challenge to many organisms, to which they need to respond to avoid fitness reductions. Investigating responses to environmental change is particularly interesting in herbivores, as they are potentially affected by indirect effects mediated via variation in host-plant quality. We here use the herbivorous insect <i>Pieris napi</i> to investigate geographic variation in the response to variation in food quality. We performed a common garden experiment using replicated populations from Germany and Italy, and manipulating host quality by growing host plants at different temperature and water regimes. We found that feeding on plants grown at a higher temperature generally diminished the performance of <i>P. napi</i>, evidenced by a prolonged development time and reduced larval growth rate, body mass, fat content, and phenoloxidase activity. Genotype by environment interactions (G x E) were present in several performance traits, indicating that Italian populations (1) respond more strongly to variation in host-plant quality and (2) are more sensitive to poor food quality than German ones. This may reflect a cost of the rapid lifestyle found in Italian populations. Consequently, German populations may be more resilient against environmental perturbations and may perhaps even benefit from warmer temperatures, while Italian populations will likely suffer from the concomitantly reduced host-plant quality. Our study thus exemplifies how investigating G x E may help to better understand the vulnerability of populations to climate change.</p>
Population bottleneck associated with but likely preceded the recent evolution of self-fertilization in a coastal dune plant
<p>Evolution of self-fertilization may be initiated by a historical population bottleneck, which should diagnostically reduce lineage-wide genetic variation. However, selfing can also strongly reduce genetic variation after it evolves. Distinguishing process from pattern is less problematic if mating system divergence is recent and geographically simple. Dramatically reduced diversity is associated with the transition from outcrossing to selfing in the Pacific coastal endemic Abronia umbellata that includes large-flowered, self-incompatible populations (var. umbellata) south of San Francisco Bay and small-flowered, autogamous populations (var. breviflora) to the north. Compared to umbellata, synonymous nucleotide diversity across 10 single-copy nuclear genes was reduced by 94% within individual populations and 90% across the whole selfing breviflora lineage, which contained no unique polymorphisms. The geographic pattern of genetic variation is consistent with a single origin of selfing that occurred recently (7–28 kya). These results are best explained by a historical bottleneck, but the two most northerly umbellata populations also contained little variation and clustered with selfing populations, suggesting that substantial diversity loss preceded the origin of selfing. A bottleneck may have set the stage for the eventual evolution of selfing by purging genetic load that prevents the spread of selfing.</p>
Data from: Effective population size in a partially clonal plant is not predicted by the number of genetic individuals
<p>Estimating effective population size (<em>N</em><sub>e</sub>) is important for theoretical and practical applications in evolutionary biology and conservation. Nevertheless, estimates of <em>N</em><sub>e</sub> in organisms with complex life-history traits remain scarce because of the challenges associated with estimation methods. Partially clonal plants capable of both vegetative (clonal) growth and sexual reproduction are a common group of organisms for which the discrepancy between the apparent number of individuals (ramets) and the number of genetic individuals (genets) can be striking, and it is unclear how this discrepancy relates to <em>N</em><sub>e</sub>.</p> <p>In this study, we analysed two populations of the orchid <em>Cypripedium calceolus</em> to understand how the rate of clonal vs. sexual reproduction affected <em>N</em><sub>e</sub>. We genotyped >1,000 ramets at microsatellite and SNP loci, and estimated contemporary <em>N</em><sub>e</sub> with the linkage disequilibrium method, starting from the theoretical expectation that variance in reproductive success among individuals caused by clonal reproduction and by constraints on sexual reproduction would lower <em>N</em><sub>e</sub>. We considered factors potentially affecting our estimates, including different marker types and sampling strategies, and the influence of pseudoreplication in genomic datasets on <em>N</em><sub>e</sub> confidence intervals. The magnitude of <em>N</em><sub>e</sub>/<em>N</em><sub>ramets </sub>and <em>N</em><sub>e</sub>/<em>N</em><sub>genets</sub> ratios we provide may be used as reference points for other species with similar life-history traits. Our findings demonstrate that <em>N</em><sub>e</sub> in partially clonal plants cannot be predicted based on the number of genets generated by sexual reproduction, because demographic changes over time can strongly influence <em>N</em><sub>e</sub>. This is especially relevant in species of conservation concern, in which population declines may not be detected by only ascertaining the number of genets.</p>
Drivers of strong isolation and small effective population size at a leading range edge of a widespread plant
<p>Climate change has influenced species distributions worldwide with upward elevational shifts observed in many systems. Leading range edge populations, like those at upper elevation limits, are crucial for climate change responses but can exhibit low genetic diversity due to founder effects, isolation, or limited outbreeding. These factors can hamper local adaptation at range limits. Using the widespread herb, <em>Argentina</em> <em>anserina</em>, we measured ecological attributes (population density on the landscape, area of population occupancy, and plant and flower density) spanning a 1000m elevation gradient, with high elevation populations at the range limit. We measured vegetative clonal potential in the greenhouse for populations spanning the gradient. We combined these data with a ddRAD-seq dataset to test the hypotheses that high-elevation populations would exhibit ecological and genomic signatures of leading range edge populations. We found that population density on the landscape declined towards the high elevation limit, as is expected towards range edges. However, plant density was elevated within edge populations. In the greenhouse, high-elevation plants exhibited stronger clonal potential than low-elevation plants, likely explaining increased plant density in the field. Phylogeographic analysis supported more recent colonization of high-elevation populations which were also more genetically isolated, had more extreme heterozygote excess, and had smaller effective population size than low. Results support that colonization of high elevations was likely accompanied by increased asexuality, contributing to a decline in effective population size. Despite high plant density in leading-edge populations, their small effective size, isolation, and clonality could constrain adaptive potential.</p>
Experimental warming increases the vulnerability of high-elevation plant populations to a specialist herbivore
<ol> <li>Ongoing climate change may impact alpine plant populations via both direct effects of increased temperature and climate-driven changes in interactions between plants and other organisms, such as insect herbivores. Rates of herbivory in high-elevation environments are predicted to increase with warmer temperatures, which may also lead to changes in morphological and physiological traits that influence plant resistance. Yet, we currently know little about how temperature-mediated changes in traits will impact alpine plant vulnerability to herbivores, as well as the extent to which populations from high-elevation environments might need to rapidly adapt to increasing herbivore pressure with rising temperatures.</li> <li>We assessed the effect of experimental warming on the relative vulnerability of populations of the alpine plant <em>Arabis</em> <em>alpina</em> from different elevations to a specialist herbivore. Herbivore performance was measured on plants from nine populations grown in climate chambers at two temperatures, representing low (warm) and high (cold) elevations. We also measured changes in putative drivers of performance: plant phenological, chemical and defence traits. Assuming populations would be adapted to local climates and levels of herbivory, we predicted that low-elevation populations would be more resistant to herbivores under warmer temperatures than high-elevation populations.</li> <li>We found reduced performance of a specialist herbivore on <em>A</em>. <em>alpina</em> grown under warm rather than cold conditions, though this effect varied with elevation. Larvae grew faster on high-elevation populations than low-elevation populations when grown under warm temperatures, whereas similar growth rates were observed for plants grown under colder temperatures, consistent with plant adaptation to the lower existing herbivore pressure in cold, high-elevation environments. Regression analyses suggested that polar metabolite variation explained more variance in larval performance than changes in defensive glucosinolates or morphological traits.</li> <li>Our results suggest that although physiological responses to warming may increase the resistance of cold-adapted plants to herbivory, populations from different elevations may differ in their interactions with herbivores under climate warming. Without genetic adaptation, existing physiological responses of high-elevation populations to warmer temperatures may leave these populations vulnerable to the increases in herbivore pressure predicted under climate change.</li> </ol>
Individual-plant selectivity by sheep in drylands scales-up at plant population level and controls the forage supply and its accessibility
<p>Diet selectivity by domestic herbivores controls plant community structure and dynamics and may induce rangeland degradation, particularly in drylands. However, management decisions frequently ignore herbivore selectivity. Here, we studied how grass morphology controls sheep selectivity for individual plants, and how this selectivity interacts with grazing intensity to determine population plant-size distributions and the forage supply. In Patagonian steppes, we manipulated the plant morphology (size and standing-dead proportion) of three dominant grass species differentially preferred by sheep for four years. Then, we evaluated how these morphological alterations affected intra- and inter-specific preference patterns. We also evaluated how grazing intensity (ungrazed, moderate grazing, and intensive grazing) affected the plant-size distribution of the three species, the forage supply, and its accessibility. For the highly preferred species, herbivores selected plants that were either naturally or experimentally short, with low proportion of standing-dead biomass. In contrast, morphological changes did not alter the within-species selectivity of the least preferred species. Grazing intensity strongly changed the population plant-size distribution of preferred species in ways that resembled the experimental manipulations of morphology. Moderate grazing showed the greatest morphological heterogeneity among individuals. When integrating the green biomass of forage species' individuals at ecosystem level, we found that the forage supply was the highest in ungrazed sites and decreased as grazing intensity increased. However, considering the dissuading effect of the standing-dead proportion of plants, the accessible forage was the highest under moderate grazing.</p> <p><em>Synthesis and applications</em>. Our findings (i) showed that, within preferred species, sheep selectivity at individual-plant level is controlled by morphological characteristics that determine accessibility to green high-quality biomass. This effect was as important as that of species identity; (ii) empirically proved plant-animal positive feedback at individual level; and (iii) revealed how the individual-plant selectivity scales-up at population level and controls the forage supply, but also its accessibility. Our complementary approach generates critical knowledge for developing management practices to control key forage species defoliation and to adjust the grazing pressure to the offer of accessible forage, avoiding the common carrying capacity overestimation. These aspects are essential for sustainable production in grazed drylands.</p>
Does a history of population co-occurrence predict plant performance, community productivity, or invasion resistance?
<p>A history of species co-occurrence in plant communities is hypothesized to lead to greater niche differentiation, more efficient resource partitioning, and more productive, resistant communities as a result of evolution in response to biotic interactions. A similar question can be asked of co-occurring populations: do individual species or community responses differ when communities are founded with plants sharing a history of population co-occurrence (sympatric) or originating from different locations (allopatric)? Using shrub, grass, and forb species from six locations in the western Great Basin, USA, we compared establishment, productivity, reproduction, phenology, and resistance to invaders for experimental communities with either sympatric or allopatric population associations. Each community type was planted with six taxa in outdoor mesocosms, measured over three growing seasons, and invaded with the annual grass <em>Bromus tectorum</em> in the final season. For most populations, the allopatric or sympatric status of neighbors was not important. However, in some cases, it was beneficial for some species from some locations to be planted with allopatric neighbors, while others benefited from sympatric neighbors, and some of these responses had large effects. For instance, the <em>Elymus</em> population that benefited the most from allopatry grew 50% larger with allopatric neighbors than in single origin mesocosms. This response affected invasion resistance, as <em>B. tectorum</em> biomass was strongly affected by productivity and phenology of <em>Elymus</em> spp., as well as <em>Poa secunda</em>. Our results demonstrate that while community composition can affect plant performance in semi-arid plant communities, assembling communities from sympatric populations is not sufficient to ensure high productivity and invasion resistance. Instead, we observed an idiosyncratic interaction between sampling effects and evolutionary history, with the potential for seed source of individual populations to have community-level effects.</p>
Density dependence of seed dispersal and fecundity profoundly alters the spread dynamics of plant populations
<ol> <li>Plant population spread has fundamental ecological and evolutionary importance. Both determinants of plant population spread, fecundity and dispersal, can be density-dependent, which should cause feedback between population densities and spread dynamics. Yet it is poorly understood how density-dependence affects key characteristics of spread: spread rate at which the location of the furthest forward individual moves, edge depth (the geographical area over which individuals contribute to spread) and population continuity (occupancy of the spreading population).</li> <li>We present a general modelling framework for analysing the effects of density-dependent fecundity and dispersal on population spread and parameterize this framework with experimental data from a common-garden experiment using five wind-dispersed plant species grown at different densities. </li> <li>Our model shows that density-dependent fecundity and dispersal strongly affect all three population spread characteristics for both exponential and lognormal dispersal kernels. Spread rate and edge depth are strongly correlated but show weaker correlations with population continuity. Positive density-dependence of fecundity increases all three spread characteristics. Increasingly positive density-dependence of dispersal increases spread rate and edge depth but generally decreases population continuity. Density-dependent fecundity and dispersal are largely additive in their effect on spread characteristics. For population continuity, the joint effects of density-dependent fecundity and dispersal are somewhat contingent on the dispersal kernel.</li> <li>The common-garden experiment and the experimentally parameterized mechanistic dispersal model revealed density-dependent fecundity and dispersal across study species. All study species exhibited negative density-dependent fecundity, but they differed qualitatively in the density-dependence of dispersal distance and probability of long-distance dispersal. The negative density-dependence of fecundity and dispersal found for three species reinforced each other in reducing spread rate and edge depth. The positively density-dependent dispersal found for two species markedly increased spread rate and edge depth. Population continuity was hardly affected by population density in all study species except Crepis sancta in which it was strongly reduced by negatively density-dependent fecundity.</li> <li> <em>Synthesis</em>. Density-dependent fecundity and seed dispersal profoundly alter population spread. In particular, positively density-dependent dispersal should promote the spread and genetic diversity of plant populations migrating under climate change but also complicate the control of invasive species.</li> </ol>
Ecosystem stability is determined by plant defense functional traits and population stability under mowing in a semi-arid temperate steppe
<ol> <li><span>As a common grassland management practice in many high-latitude regions worldwide, mowing has great impacts on grassland functioning and stability. Species richness, species asynchrony and species stability have been suggested as central in responses to environmental change. Mowing can evoke plant defense systems due to physical damages to plants. However, no studies have comprehensively evaluated the role of plant defense functional traits, species richness, species asynchrony and stability in ecosystem functioning under mowing regimes across time-scales. </span></li> <li> <span>In the present study, we set up short-term (4-years) and long-term (16-years) mowing experiments with three stubble heights (control, 10 cm, 2 cm) in a temperate steppe of Inner Mongolia. We investigated the effects of mowing-induced changes in distribution metrics associated with plant defense traits, i.e. mean, variance, skewness and kurtosis of trait distribution, on ecosystem stability of grassland communities using structural equation modeling.</span> </li> <li><span>We found that grassland ecosystem stability was enhanced by increasing mowing duration and decreasing stubble height. Mowing-induced increases in abundance and diversity of plant defense traits contributed to greater ecosystem stability by enhancing species asynchrony and population stability. Moreover, we found that mowing enhanced the abundance and diversity of plant defense traits of dominant species and contributed to population stability and species asynchrony, thus enhancing temporal stability of grassland ecosystems. </span></li> <li><span>These results demonstrate the important roles of plant defense traits in maintaining stability of grasslands under mowing, and highlight that, in addition to species richness, asynchrony and population stability, plant functional defense trait act in stabilizing ecosystem functions under human-induced environmental changes.</span></li> </ol>
Tackling local ecological homogeneity: Finding intraspecific trait variability in local populations of Mediterranean plants
<p>Local homogeneity, in ecology, is the often undisclosed assumption that variability within populations is negligible or mostly distributed evenly. In large areas, this can lead to the aggregation of different populations without regard for their unique needs and characteristics, such as drought sensitivity and functional traits distributions. Here we discuss whether this assumption can be justified, and we hypothesize that discerning the source of variation between plasticity and adaptation could be a feasible approach to formulate an informed decision. We test this hypothesis on plants, resorting to a common garden experiment to determine the source of variation of several plant functional traits at a local scale (~60 Km) of three wild species: <em>Quercus ilex</em>, <em>Pistacia lentiscus</em> and <em>Cistus salviifolius</em>. Individuals of each species were sourced from three key sites chosen along a local aridity gradient. Our approach led to the rejection of the local homogeneity assumption for <em>Q. ilex</em> and <em>C. salviifolius</em> at this scale due to the adaptive divergence observed among neighbouring populations. This case study provides evidence that addressing local homogeneity can highlight diverging populations in a relatively simple way. We conclude that gathering empirical evidence on intraspecific variability is a feasible approach that can provide researchers with solid bases to decide whether to adopt the local homogeneity assumption or not.</p>
Population bottleneck associated with but likely preceded the recent evolution of self-fertilization in a coastal dune plant
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Data from: An established plant invader may still benefit from increasing genetic diversity – Insights from artificial populations in a common garden experiment
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Disentangling the effects of population mixing and propagule amount in rare plant translocations
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Data from: Pace and parity predict short-term persistence of small plant populations
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Ecosystem stability is determined by plant defense functional traits and population stability under mowing in a semi-arid temperate steppe
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Individual-plant selectivity by sheep in drylands scales-up at plant population level and controls the forage supply and its accessibility
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QTL mapping for seedling and adult plant resistance to stripe and leaf rust in two winter wheat populations
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Data from: Early snowmelt projected to cause population decline in a subalpine plant
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International Brain Laboratory public data
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OpenNeuro
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