Causes and consequences of plant climate adaptation
Date
2019
Authors
Monroe, John Grey, author
McKay, John, advisor
Ghalambor, Cameron, committee member
Hufbauer, Ruth, committee member
Sloan, Dan, committee member
Des Marais, Dave, committee member
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Abstract
Climatic conditions such as temperature and drought can sources of strong selection on natural populations. In plants, whose sessile nature forces them to adapt to local climate conditions, extensive evidence of local adaptation has been observed. However, the consequences of this adaptation on ecosystem processes such as carbon cycling remain poorly understood. Additionally, the molecular basis of adaptation is often unresolved and the specific climatic factors that drive adaptive evolution unclear. Addressing these knowledge gaps has become increasingly urgent as climate change threatens to rapidly alter selection regimes. Fortunately, conceptual and technical advances provide new opportunities to characterize and integrate environments, phenotypes, and genes, and thus advance our understanding of the causes and consequences of climate adaptation. In Chapter 2 of this dissertation, I consider the consequences of climate adaptation through the lens of ecoevolutionary dynamics. Integrating environments and phenotypes by considering ecosystem impacts of adaptive evolution, I review empirical evidence that contemporary climate adaptation could significantly alter the carbon cycle. In Chapter 3, I investigate the molecular basis of adaptation to winter temperatures in the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana by integrating genes and environments through the framework of landscape and population genetics. Specifically, I address the hypothesis that loss-of-function in a family of transcription factors contributes to adaptation to warmer climates. In Chapter 4, I develop methods combining whole genome sequence data, long term remote sensing, and reverse genetics to study drought as an agent of selection on flowering time and identify loss-of-function variants contributing to this evolution in Arabidopsis thaliana. Together, this work has inspired my interest in combining conceptual, computational, experimental innovations into an integrated research program to understand climate adaptation.
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Subject
evolution
climate adaptation