MRI: Development of a Southwest Experimental Garden Array (SEGA) for Integrating Genetics and Climate Change

为了整合遗传学和气候变化研究，西南实验园阵列(SEGA)将相互移植和种源试验设计与最先进的多因素气候变化操纵相结合。这一设施将允许从基因到生态系统的研究，以测试植物沿着环境梯度表现的遗传基础。这一设施允许用户测试基本假设，即按环境遗传的方法对于了解气候变化对世界生物群的影响至关重要，并将这些生物群反馈给气候系统。如果采取有管理的转移战略，这样的研究将变得至关重要。这种强大的实验方法如此成功地应用于农业，但在气候变化研究中尚未实现其潜力。它需要遗传学与社区生态学、生态系统科学、气候学和土地管理相结合，这些学科传统上缺乏遗传学视角。这种方法的前景得到了相互移植实验的证明，实验表明，由于与环境的强烈遗传相互作用，适应当地的树种现在正变得在当地“不适应”，这反过来又影响到数百个相关物种。该设施沿着从沙漠到山地森林生态系统的海拔梯度，使用了一系列10个普通花园(两种土壤类型各5个)，为新一代气候变化研究提供了基础。例如，使用相同植物基因型的相互移植，来自多个学科的研究人员将量化气候变化对1)驱动其各自生态系统的基础植物物种的生态和进化影响，2)依赖这些植物生存的相关节肢动物、微生物和林下群落，3)本地物种与外来物种的相互作用，以及4)从这些相互作用中出现的生态系统过程。这一设施将使鉴定在当前和未来气候条件下的不同物种和基因型表现的生理机制成为可能。来自阵列的植物性能结果将允许建模者结合遗传算法来校准模型，并预测植被变化和整个社区对气候变化的反应。由于美国西南部正在经历北美一些最严重的气候变化影响，我们的花园阵列可以在解决基因与环境的相互作用方面发挥区域和全球作用，这些相互作用可能在本世纪重塑生物群落。这个花园阵列将为科学家提供遗传学信息，以便更好地预测气候变化对个别物种、群落和生态系统的影响，这反过来将为土地管理和恢复项目提供信息。我们的阵列将：1)为受控易位的概念提供科学基础；2)确定在特定地点对当前和预期的未来气候条件表现最好的耐旱基因和来源种群(S)；以及3)帮助开发管理受益于气候变化的入侵物种的技术。这一设施将加强现有和新的教育计划，并努力从STEM领域代表性不足的群体中招收和留住学生。本科生和研究生将使用这些网站进行自己的研究。我们位于弗拉格斯塔夫植物园和乌帕特基国家纪念碑的地点将为每年100,000多名游客提供公共服务。利益相关者包括NAU的11个研究和教育中心、USFS、NPS、TNC、USGS、BLM、巴比特牧场和国际合作者。世嘉将成为全球拟议阵列的典范。

To integrate genetics and climate change research, the Southwest Experimental Garden Array (SEGA), combines reciprocal transplant and provenance trial experimental designs with state-of-the-art multi-factor climate change manipulations. This facility will allow research that scales from genes to ecosystems to test the genetic basis of plant performance along environmental gradients. This facility allows users to test the fundamental hypothesis that a genetic by environment approach is central to understanding climate change impacts on the biomes of the world, and feedbacks of these biomes to the climate system. Such studies will become essential if managed translocation strategies are adopted. The potential of this powerful experimental approach, so successfully used in agriculture, has not been realized in climate change research. It requires an integration of genetics with community ecology, ecosystem science, climatology, and land management, disciplines that have traditionally lacked a genetics perspective. The promise of this approach is demonstrated by reciprocal transplant experiments showing that locally adapted tree species are now becoming locally "maladapted" due to strong genetic interactions with the environment, which in turn affects hundreds of associated species. Using a series of 10 common gardens (5 in each of two soil types) along an elevation gradient from desert to mountain forest ecosystems, this facility provides the basis of a new generation of climate change research. For example, using reciprocal transplants of the same plant genotypes, researchers from multiple disciplines will quantify the ecological and evolutionary impacts of climate change on 1) foundation plant species that drive their respective ecosystems, 2) their associated arthropod, microbial, and understory communities that depend upon these plants for their survival, 3) native-exotic species interactions, and 4) the ecosystem processes that emerge from these interactions. This facility will enable identification of physiological mechanisms that underlie differential species and genotype performance under current and future climatic conditions. Plant performance results from the array will allow modelers to incorporate a genetic algorithm to calibrate models and to predict vegetation shifts and whole community responses to climate changes. Because the southwestern USA is experiencing some of the highest levels of climate-change impacts in North America, our garden array can serve a regional as well as a global role in addressing the gene by environment interactions that are likely to reshape biotic communities this century.This garden array will provide genetics information for scientists to make better informed predictions of the impact of climate change on individual species, communities, and ecosystems, which in turn will inform land management and restoration projects. Our array will: 1) provide a scientific basis for the concept of managed translocation, 2) identify drought tolerant genotypes and source population(s) that perform best at a given location for current and expected future climatic conditions, and 3) help develop techniques for managing invasive species that have benefited from climate change. This facility will enhance existing and new education programs and efforts to recruit and retain students from underrepresented groups in STEM fields. Under-graduates and graduate students will use these sites for their own research. Our sites at The Arboretum at Flagstaff and Wupatki National Monument will provide public outreach to 100,000 plus annual visitors. Stakeholders include 11 Research and Education Centers at NAU, USFS, NPS, TNC, USGS, BLM, Babbitt Ranches, and international collaborators. SEGA will serve as a model for proposed arrays worldwide.