Abstract
Spatial patterns of adaptation provide important insights into agents of selection and expected responses of populations to climate change. Robust inference into the spatial scale of adaptation can be gained through reciprocal transplant experiments that combine multiple source populations and common gardens. Here, we examine the spatial scale of local adaptation of the North American annual plant common ragweed, Ambrosia artemisiifolia, using data from four common gardens with 22 source populations sampled from across a ∼1200 km latitudinal gradient within the native range. We found evidence of local adaptation at the northernmost common garden, but maladaptation at the two southern gardens, where more southern source populations outperformed local populations. Overall, the spatial scale of adaptation was large—at the three gardens where distance between source populations and gardens explained variation in fitness, it took an average of 820 km for fitness to decline to 50% of its predicted maximum. Taken together, these results suggest that climate change has already caused maladaptation, especially across the southern portion of the range, and may result in northward range contraction over time.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 2916-2929 |
| Number of pages | 14 |
| Journal | Evolution |
| Volume | 76 |
| Issue number | 12 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Dec 2022 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:We thank M. Merello, L. Peters, the Missouri Botanical Garden, R. Noyes, C. Rentschler, and J. Carlson for assistance with seed collections. Y. W. Lee, S. DelSerra, and J. Yoon Kim assisted with data collection in the field. We also thank the following individuals and associated institutions for use of their field stations: M. Lotsetter at the Rosemount Outreach and Research Center (University of Minnesota), E. Hill at the Conrad Environmental Research Area (Grinnell College), M. Bernards at the University of Western Illinois, and K. Medley at the Tyson Research Center (Washington University). The research was supported by a Carol H and Wayne Pletcher Fellowship and a Dayton Fellowship (Bell Natural History Museum) to AJG, both from the University of Minnesota.
Funding Information:
We thank M. Merello, L. Peters, the Missouri Botanical Garden, R. Noyes, C. Rentschler, and J. Carlson for assistance with seed collections. Y. W. Lee, S. DelSerra, and J. Yoon Kim assisted with data collection in the field. We also thank the following individuals and associated institutions for use of their field stations: M. Lotsetter at the Rosemount Outreach and Research Center (University of Minnesota), E. Hill at the Conrad Environmental Research Area (Grinnell College), M. Bernards at the University of Western Illinois, and K. Medley at the Tyson Research Center (Washington University). The research was supported by a Carol H and Wayne Pletcher Fellowship and a Dayton Fellowship (Bell Natural History Museum) to AJG, both from the University of Minnesota.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 The Authors. Evolution © 2022 The Society for the Study of Evolution.
Keywords
- Local adaptation
- maladaptation
- range shifts
- reciprocal transplant
