Adaptive genetic potential and plasticity of trait variation in the foundation prairie grass across the US Great Plains' climate gradient: Implications for climate change and restoration.

Plant response to climate depends on a species' adaptive potential. To address this, we used reciprocal gardens to detect genetic and environmental plasticity effects on phenotypic variation and combined with genetic analyses. Four reciprocal garden sites were planted with three regional ecotypes of a dominant Great Plains prairie grass, using dry, mesic, and wet ecotypes originating from western KS to Illinois that span 500-1,200 mm rainfall/year.

Evolutionary constraint on low elevation range expansion: Defense-abiotic stress-tolerance trade-off in crosses of the ecological model .

Most transplant experiments across species geographic range boundaries indicate that adaptation to stressful environments outside the range is often constrained. However, the mechanisms of these constraints remain poorly understood. We used extended generation crosses from diverged high and low elevation populations.