10.5061/DRYAD.GTHT76HN5
Cheptou, Pierre-olivier
0000-0002-5739-5176
French National Centre for Scientific Research
Rapid divergent evolution of an annual plant across a latitudinal gradient
revealed by seed resurrection
Dryad
dataset
2021
Evolutionary ecology
National Council for Scientific Research
https://ror.org/00x9ewr78
2021-09-17T00:00:00Z
2021-09-17T00:00:00Z
en
41101 bytes
3
CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication
Global change is expected to drive short-term evolution of natural
populations. However, it remains unclear whether different populations are
changing in unison. Here, we study contemporary evolution of
growth-related and reproductive traits of three populations of Cyanus
segetum face to warming and pollinator decline across a latitudinal
gradient in France. We resurrected stored seeds sampled up to 24 years
apart from northern, central-western, and southern populations and
conducted an in situ common-garden experiment. To disentangle neutral from
selection-driven differentiation, we calculated neutral genetic
differentiation (FST) and quantitative trait differentiation (QST) between
temporal samples. We found that phenotypic evolution was divergent across
populations exhibiting different trends for rosette size, date of
flowering, and capitula size. By measuring seed set as a proxy of fitness,
we showed that samples with larger mean capitula size outperformed samples
with smaller mean capitula size in the western and southern populations.
Regression of traits on seed set showed that flowering date and capitula
size are the primary determinants of fitness, and QST-FST comparisons
indicated that natural selection has likely contributed to the shifts in
flowering phenology and rosette size. These findings outline the potential
for rescue of natural populations through contemporary evolution and
emphasize the complex interplay between spatial and temporal variation in
species’ responses to global change.