Community genetics aims to understand the effects of intraspecific genetic variation on community composition and diversity, thereby connecting community ecology with evolutionary biology. Thus far, research has shown that plant genetics can underlie variation in the composition of associated communities (e.g., insects, lichen and endophytes), and those communities can therefore be considered as extended phenotypes. This work, however, has been conducted primarily at the plant
This content will become publicly available on May 1, 2024
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10419621
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Forests
- Volume:
- 14
- Issue:
- 5
- ISSN:
- 1999-4907
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 943
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
More Like this
-
more » « less
Abstract genotype level and has not identified the key underlying genes. To address this gap, we used genome‐wide association mapping with a population of 445 aspen (Populus tremuloides ) genets to identify the genes governing variation in plant traits (defence chemistry, bud phenology, leaf morphology, growth) and insect community composition. We found 49 significant SNP associations in 13Populus genes that are correlated with chemical defence compounds and insect community traits. Most notably, we identified an early nodulin‐like protein that was associated with insect community diversity and the abundance of interacting foundation species (ants and aphids). These findings support the concept that particular plant traits are the mechanistic link between plant genes and the composition of associated insect communities. In putting the “genes” into “genes to ecosystems ecology”, this work enhances understanding of the molecular genetic mechanisms that underlie plant–insect associations and the consequences thereof for the structure of ecological communities. -
null (Ed.)Abstract Understanding how species-rich communities persist is a foundational question in ecology. In tropical forests, tree diversity is structured by edaphic factors, climate, and biotic interactions, with seasonality playing an essential role at landscape scales: wetter and less seasonal forests typically harbor higher tree diversity than more seasonal forests. We posited that the abiotic factors shaping tree diversity extend to hyperdiverse symbionts in leaves—fungal endophytes—that influence plant health, function, and resilience to stress. Through surveys in forests across Panama that considered climate, seasonality, and covarying biotic factors, we demonstrate that endophyte richness varies negatively with temperature seasonality. Endophyte community structure and taxonomic composition reflect both temperature seasonality and climate (mean annual temperature and precipitation). Overall our findings highlight the vital role of climate-related factors in shaping the hyperdiversity of these important and little-known symbionts of the trees that, in turn, form the foundations of tropical forest biodiversity.more » « less
-
more » « less
Wind disperses the pollen and seeds of many plants, but little is known about whether and how it shapes large-scale landscape genetic patterns. We address this question by a synthesis and reanalysis of genetic data from more than 1,900 populations of 97 tree and shrub species around the world, using a newly developed framework for modeling long-term landscape connectivity by wind currents. We show that wind shapes three independent aspects of landscape genetics in plants with wind pollination or seed dispersal: populations linked by stronger winds are more genetically similar, populations linked by directionally imbalanced winds exhibit asymmetric gene flow ratios, and downwind populations have higher genetic diversity. For each of these distinct hypotheses, partial correlations between the respective wind and genetic metrics (controlling for distance and climate) are positive for a significant majority of wind-dispersed or wind-pollinated genetic data sets and increase significantly across functional groups expected to be increasingly influenced by wind. Together, these results indicate that the geography of both wind strength and wind direction play important roles in shaping large-scale genetic patterns across the world’s forests. These findings have implications for various aspects of basic plant ecology and evolution, as well as the response of biodiversity to future global change.
-
more » « less
Abstract Lakes and their topological distribution across Earth's surface impose ecological and evolutionary constraints on aquatic metacommunities. In this study, we group similar lake ecosystems as metacommunity units influencing diatom community structure. We assembled a database of 195 lakes from the tropical Andes and adjacent lowlands (8°N–30°S and 58–79°W) with associated environmental predictors to examine diatom metacommunity patterns at two different levels: taxon and functional (deconstructed species matrix by ecological guilds). We also derived spatial variables that inherently assessed the relative role of dispersal. Using complementary multivariate statistical techniques (principal component analysis, cluster analysis, nonmetric multidimensional scaling, Procrustes, variance partitioning), we examined diatom–environment relationships among different lake habitats (sediment surface, periphyton, and plankton) and partitioned community variation to evaluate the influence of niche‐ and dispersal‐based assembly processes in diatom metacommunity structure across lake clusters. The results showed a significant association between geographic clusters of lakes based on gradients of climate and landscape configuration and diatom assemblages. Six lake clusters distributed along a latitudinal gradient were identified as functional metacommunity units for diatom communities. Variance partitioning revealed that dispersal mechanisms were a major contributor to diatom metacommunity structure, but in a highly context‐dependent fashion across lake clusters. In the Andean Altiplano and adjacent lowlands of Bolivia, diatom metacommunities are niche assembled but constrained by either dispersal limitation or mass effects, resulting from area, environmental heterogeneity, and ecological guild relationships. Topographic heterogeneity played an important role in structuring planktic diatom metacommunities. We emphasize the value of a guild‐based metacommunity model linked to dispersal for elucidating mechanisms underlying latitudinal gradients in distribution. Our findings reveal the importance of shifts in ecological drivers across climatic and physiographically distinct lake clusters, providing a basis for comparison of broad‐scale community gradients in lake‐rich regions elsewhere. This may help guide future research to explore evolutionary constraints on the rich Neotropical benthic diatom species pool.
-
Ahmed, Ferdous (Ed.)We addressed the hypothesis that intraspecific genetic variation in plant traits from different sites along a distance/elevation gradient would influence the communities they support when grown at a new site. Answers to this hypothesis are important when considering the community consequences of assisted migration under climate change; i.e., if you build it will they come?. We surveyed arthropod communities occurring on the foundation riparian tree species Populus angustifolia along a distance/elevation gradient and in a common garden where trees from along the gradient were planted 20–22 years earlier. Three major patterns were found: 1) In the wild, arthropod community composition changed significantly. Trees at the lower elevation site supported up to 58% greater arthropod abundance and 26% greater species richness than more distant, high elevation trees. 2) Trees grown in a common garden sourced from the same locations along the gradient, supported arthropod communities more similar to their corresponding wild trees, but the similarity declined with transfer distance and elevation. 3) Of five functional traits examined, leaf area, a trait under genetic control that decreases at higher elevations, is correlated with differences in arthropod species richness and abundance. Our results suggest that genetic differences in functional traits are stronger drivers of arthropod community composition than phenotypic plasticity of plant traits due to environmental factors. We also show that variation in leaf area is maintained and has similar effects at the community level while controlling for environment. These results demonstrate how genetically based traits vary across natural gradients and have community-level effects that are maintained, in part, when they are used in assisted migration. Furthermore, optimal transfer distances for plants suffering from climate change may not be the same as optimal transfer distances for their dependent communities.more » « less
