Ongoing changes in fire regimes have the potential to drive widespread shifts in Earth's vegetation. Plant traits and vital rates provide insight into vulnerability to fire‐driven vegetation shifts because they can be indicators of the ability of individuals to survive fire (resistance) and populations to persist (resilience) following fire. In 15 study sites spanning climatic gradients in the southern Rocky Mountains, USA, we quantified variation in key traits and vital rates of two co‐occurring, widely distributed conifers (
Juveniles are typically less resistant (more susceptible) to infectious disease than adults, and this difference in susceptibility can help fuel the spread of pathogens in age‐structured populations. However, evolutionary explanations for this variation in resistance across age remain to be tested. One hypothesis is that natural selection has optimized resistance to peak at ages where disease exposure is greatest. A central assumption of this hypothesis is that hosts have the capacity to evolve resistance independently at different ages. This would mean that host populations have (a) standing genetic variation in resistance at both juvenile and adult stages, and (b) that this variation is not strongly correlated between age classes so that selection acting at one age does not produce a correlated response at the other age. Here we evaluated the capacity of three wild plant species ( Within each species we grew families to different ages, inoculated individuals with anther smut, and evaluated the effects of age, family and their interaction on infection. In two of the plant species,
- Award ID(s):
- 1936334
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10371126
- Publisher / Repository:
- Wiley-Blackwell
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Journal of Ecology
- Volume:
- 110
- Issue:
- 9
- ISSN:
- 0022-0477
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- p. 2046-2061
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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