Climate change and evolution of plant phenology

全球变暖将极大地改变加拿大的植被景观，从而对森林管理、保护自然遗址、杂草控制和提供生态系统服务提出挑战。 气候变化可以说是加拿大最普遍的环境威胁，因为所有其他此类问题都有气候因素。 全球变暖的短期尺度导致许多人从生态学角度思考其生物后果。许多人预测，来自南方的热适应性更强的种群将向极地迁移。 其他人则预测常住人口的生理和发育中的表型可塑性转变。 这种反应可以减轻对自然种群的影响，但只能在其现有遗传库允许的程度上。重要的是，气候的改变改变了选择机制，因此对全球变暖的总生物反应将具有进化的维度。 少数研究，包括我的小组的一项研究，已经表明了气候变化的进化反应。 十年时间框架内的进化变化可能在短至中等生命周期的物种中广泛存在。 我提出了一个研究计划，以了解进化变化的速度，特别是遗传适应延长生长季节，以及如何自然选择，基因流，和非随机交配可能会影响它。虽然向极迁移可能带来耐热基因，但这些适应性位点的渐渗将受到以下因素的抑制：a）与导致北方纬度光周期周期下不适应生殖物候的位点的配子（连锁）不平衡，以及B）由这种不适应物候引起的强迫交配; 2.延长生长季节将选择延迟开花时间在常住人口; 3。开花时间的进化转变是加速的phenolgological的选择性交配;和4。 进化对气候变化的反应速度随着纬度的增加而增加。 该计划将采用几种一年生和短命的多年生植物，并将在乔克斯山的科夫勒科学保护区使用人工变暖地块。

Global warming will drastically alter Canada's vegetation landscape, thereby presenting challenges for forest management, preservation of natural sites, weed control and delivery of ecosystem services. Climate change is arguably Canada's most pervasive environmental threat since all other such problems have a climatic element. The short time scale of global warming leads many to think about its biological consequences in ecological terms. Many predict pole-ward migration from more thermally adapted populations from the south. Others anticipate phenotypicaly plastic shifts in physiology and development in resident populations. Such responses can ameliorate the impact on natural populations, but only to the degree allowed by their current genetic repertoire. Importantly, altered climate imposes altered selection regimes and hence the total biological response to global warming will have evolutionary dimensions. A small number of studies, including one form my group, already indicate evolutionary responses climate change. Evolutionary change on a decadal time frame could be widespread among species with short to medium life cycles. I propose a research program to understand the rate of evolutionary change-particularly genetic adaptation to extended growing seasons-and how natural selection, gene flow, and non-random mating might affect it. Projects will test specific hypotheses, including: 1. Although pole-ward migrants may bring thermal tolerance genes, introgression of these adaptive loci will be inhibited by a) gametic (linkage) disequilibrium with loci causing maladaptive reproductive phenology under the photoperiodic cycle of northern latitudes, and b) assortative mating caused by this maladaptive phenology; 2. Extended growing seasons will select for delayed flowering times in resident populations; 3. Evolutionary shifts in flowering time are accelerated by phenolgical assortative mating; and 4. The rate of evolutionary response to climate change increases with latitude. The program will employ several species of annual and short-lived perennial plants, and will be executed with the use of artificial warming plots at the Koffler Scientific Reserve at Jokers Hill.