Dissertation Research: Spatially Autocorrelated Environmental Heterogeneity: Within-Population Effects in Danthonia spicata

9623772大环境在资源异质性的水平和空间尺度上都不同。植物可以通过在不降低繁殖成功率的情况下单独缓冲环境变化来应对这种变化，或者通过种子传播避免暴露在环境变化的负面部分中。如果一个人不能缓冲或避免有害的环境变化，那么他的表现就会下降。由该奖项资助的研究将解决植物种群中是否存在遗传变异以缓冲能力或避免环境异质性。当地的草本植物--丹参草将被用作模式系统。田间实验将评估几种牧草基因所经历的环境变化的程度和规模，温室研究将测试相同的基因在缓冲关键生长来源--土壤氮素--变化方面的能力是否不同。将测试不同个体缓冲能力差异的适应性后果。了解物种通过多个性状的联合反应来应对环境变化的能力，应该有助于预测本土植物种群如何应对环境退化。

9623772 Gross Environments differ in both the level and spatial scale of heterogeneity in resources. Plants can respond to this variation either by individually buffering environmental changes without decreasing their reproductive success or by avoiding exposure to the negative portion of environmental variation through seed dispersal. If an individual cannot buffer or avoid deleterious environmental change then its performance will decline. Research funded by this award will address whether genetic variation exists within plant populations for either buffering capacity or avoidance of environmental heterogeneity. The native grass, Danthonia spicata, will be used as a model system. Field experiments will assess the magnitude and scale of environmental variation experienced by several grass genotypes and a greenhouse study will test whether the same genotypes vary in their ability to buffer variation in one key growth resource, soil nitrogen. Fitness consequences of differences among individuals in buffering capacity will be tested. Understanding the ability of species to respond to environmental variation through joint response of multiple traits should be helpful in predicting how native plant populations will cope with environmental degradation.