Environmental drivers of increased ecosystem respiration in a warming tundra.

Arctic and alpine tundra ecosystems are large reservoirs of organic carbon. Climate warming may stimulate ecosystem respiration and release carbon into the atmosphere. The magnitude and persistency of this stimulation and the environmental mechanisms that drive its variation remain uncertain.

Insights into the tussock growth form with model-data fusion.

Some rhizomatous grass and sedge species form tussocks that impact ecosystem structure and function. Despite their importance, tussock development and size controls are poorly understood due to the decadal to centennial timescales over which tussocks form. We explored mechanisms regulating tussock development and size in a ubiquitous arctic tussock sedge (Eriophorum vaginatum) using field observations and a mass balance model coupled with a tiller population model.

EcoEvoApps: Interactive apps for theoretical models in ecology and evolutionary biology.

The integration of theory and data drives progress in science, but a persistent barrier to such integration in ecology and evolutionary biology is that theory is often developed and expressed in the form of mathematical models that can feel daunting and inaccessible for students and empiricists with variable quantitative training and attitudes towards math. A promising way to make mathematical models more approachable is to embed them into interactive tools with which one can visually evaluate model structures and directly explore model outcomes through simulation. To promote such interactive learning of quantitative models, we developed EcoEvoApps, a collection of free, open-source, and multilingual R/Shiny apps that include model overviews, interactive model simulations, and code to implement these models directly in R.

Evolutionary lability underlies drought adaptation of Australian shrubs along aridity gradients.

Leaf drought tolerance traits influence plant survival in water deficit conditions, and these traits are influenced by both the plant's evolutionary history and the environment in which the plant is currently growing. However, due to the substantial phenotypic plasticity in leaf traits, we still do not know to what degree variation in leaf traits is governed by species' phylogenetic history or by their environment. To explore this question, we re-examined a drought tolerance dataset from 37 native Australian shrub species with varying climate origins growing in a common garden located in Melbourne, Australia.

Landscape Genomics Provides Evidence of Ecotypic Adaptation and a Barrier to Gene Flow at Treeline for the Arctic Foundation Species .

Global climate change has resulted in geographic range shifts of flora and fauna at a global scale. Extreme environments, like the Arctic, are seeing some of the most pronounced changes. This region covers 14% of the Earth's land area, and while many arctic species are widespread, understanding ecotypic variation at the genomic level will be important for elucidating how range shifts will affect ecological processes.

Responses of root phenology in ecotypes of Eriophorum vaginatum to transplantation and warming in the Arctic.

The effect of climate change on phenology and growth is less understood for belowground plant tissues than for aboveground plant tissues, particularly in high-latitude regions. Ecotypes within a species adapted to a locality may display different responses to climate change. We established two common garden plots in the Arctic tundra north of the Brooks Range in northern Alaska.

Comparative transcriptomics of an arctic foundation species, tussock cottongrass (Eriophorum vaginatum), during an extreme heat event.

Tussock cottongrass (Eriophorum vaginatum) is a foundation species for much of the arctic moist acidic tundra, which is currently experiencing extreme effects of climate change. The Arctic is facing higher summer temperatures and extreme weather events are becoming more common. We used Illumina RNA-Seq to analyse cDNA libraries for differential expression of genes from leaves of ecologically well-characterized ecotypes of tussock cottongrass found along a latitudinal gradient in the Alaskan Arctic and transplanted into a common garden.

Differential responses of ecotypes to climate in a ubiquitous Arctic sedge: implications for future ecosystem C cycling.

The response of vegetation to climate change has implications for the carbon cycle and global climate. It is frequently assumed that a species responds uniformly across its range to climate change. However, ecotypes - locally adapted populations within a species - display differences in traits that may affect their gross primary productivity (GPP) and response to climate change.

Effect of growth temperature on photosynthetic capacity and respiration in three ecotypes of .

Ecotypic differentiation in the tussock-forming sedge has led to the development of populations that are locally adapted to climate in Alaska's moist tussock tundra. As a foundation species, plays a central role in providing topographic and microclimatic variation essential to these ecosystems, but a changing climate could diminish the importance of this species. As Arctic temperatures have increased, there is evidence of adaptational lag in , as locally adapted ecotypes now exhibit reduced population growth rates.

Ecotypic differences in the phenology of the tundra species reflect sites of origin.

is a tussock-forming sedge that contributes significantly to the structure and primary productivity of moist acidic tussock tundra. Locally adapted populations (ecotypes) have been identified across the geographical distribution of ; however, little is known about how their growth and phenology differ over the course of a growing season. The growing season is short in the Arctic and therefore exerts a strong selection pressure on tundra species.

Acorn size and tolerance to seed predators: the multiple roles of acorns as food for seed predators, fruit for dispersal and fuel for growth.

Fitness of parents and offspring is affected by offspring size. In oaks (Quercus spp.), acorns vary considerably in size across, and within, species.

Northward displacement of optimal climate conditions for ecotypes of Eriophorum vaginatum L. across a latitudinal gradient in Alaska.

Plants are often genetically specialized as ecotypes attuned to local environmental conditions. When conditions change, the optimal environment may be physically displaced from the local population, unless dispersal or in situ evolution keep pace, resulting in a phenomenon called adaptational lag. Using a 30-year-old reciprocal transplant study across a 475 km latitudinal gradient, we tested the adaptational lag hypothesis by measuring both short-term (tiller population growth rates) and long-term (17-year survival) fitness components of Eriophorum vaginatum ecotypes in Alaska, where climate change may have already displaced the optimum.