The ecological and evolutionary consequences of plant modularity

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My research investigates the evolutionary and ecological consequences of plant modularity. “Modularity” describes the ways plants grow: unlike most animals, plants grow through the iterative production of repeated structures, such as the repeated production of leaves or flowers on a stem, or the repeated production of entire individuals within a clone. Even though the many modules of a plant share a single set of genes, they are not identical copies of one another. Flower size, for example, typically varies from flower-to-flower on a plant, as do other repeated traits. My students and I seek to understand how modularity, and variation among modules, affects the ways in which plants interact with their environment and with each other. In particular, we ask (1) is variation among the flowers within a plant beneficial to plant survival and reproduction?, (2) can the magnitude of variation among flowers evolve through natural selection (e.g., can variation in flower size evolve in the same way that average flower size evolves)?, and (3) how does the production of multiple individuals (and multiple flowers) within a clone affect the frequency of mating between the flowers of the same clone? To answer these questions, we study two plant species (both native to Canada) using a combination of fieldwork in natural populations, greenhouse experiments, and lab analyses. The answers we uncover will improve our understanding of how modularity a fundamental plant character enables and constrains plant adaptation, and this knowledge in turn will be important to anticipating plant responses to a changing word. Our work (particularly question 3) will also provide insight into evolutionary processes in perennial and clonal plants, a group dominates Canada's flora, but has historically received less attention from evolutionary biologists than annual plants.