Effects of environmental clines and herbivory for plant functional traits and response to climate change

经过几代人的努力，野生物种可以适应其物理环境并进化出使其能够更好地在干旱中生存的特征。 物种也可以适应其他物种。例如，被昆虫吃掉可以选择在植物中产生防御性化学物质。该项目将研究这两种类型的进化驱动力，物理和生物，如何协同工作，以指导进化和塑造物种内的局部适应。研究将集中在水的可用性和食草昆虫的存在如何导致广泛分布的木本植物的不同种群进化出不同的抵御干旱和破坏的能力。研究结果将提高对多种自然力量如何通过进化改变生物体的基本科学理解。这项工作还将促进对全球变化的多个方面（例如气候变化和人类将物种引入新栖息地）可能如何改变人类生活的物种的实际了解。为了帮助向公众传达这一理解，该项目将为K-12青年制定教育课程。研究人员将研究加州中部和南部海岸沿着700公里（纬度6 °）的木本灌木加州蒿，该地区的降水变化预计将增加。来自20个源种群的基因型将在整个物种范围内的共同花园中建立，并受到环境和减少草食动物和环境和增加年内降水量的变化。从这些花园的植物性状的测量将补充从一个平行的实地研究草食动物的耐受性，防御和抗性性状的测量。人口来源地的特点将在非生物和生物环境。通过测量当前和操纵环境下植物性状的自然选择模式，本研究将记录当前的局部适应模式，并预测未来对预测气候变化的进化反应。

Over generations, wild species can adapt to their physical environment and evolve, for example, features that enable them to better survive drought. Species can also adapt in response to other species. For instance, being eaten by insects can select for the production of defensive chemicals in plants. This project will study how these two types of drivers of evolution, the physical and the biotic, can work in concert to direct evolution and to shape local adaptation within a species. Research will focus on how the availability of water and the presence of plant-eating insects have caused different populations of a widespread woody plant to evolve different abilities to withstand drought and damage. Results will improve basic scientific understanding of how multiple, natural forces can change organisms through evolution. The work will also advance practical understanding of how multiple aspects of global change, such as climate change and introduction of species into new habitats by humans, are likely to change the species with which people live. To help communicate this understanding to the public, the project will develop educational curricula for K-12 youth. Researchers will study the woody shrub Artemisia californica along 700 km (6o latitude) of the central and southern coast of California, a region in which precipitation variability is projected to increase. Genotypes from 20 source populations will be established in common gardens throughout the range of the species and subjected to ambient and reduced herbivory and to ambient and increased intra-annual variability in precipitation. The measurement of plant traits from these gardens will be complemented with measurements of herbivore tolerance, defense and resistance traits from a parallel field study. Population source sites will be characterized with respect to both the abiotic and biotic environment. By measuring patterns of natural selection on plant traits under current and manipulated environments, this study will document current patterns of local adaptation and forecast future evolutionary response to projected climate change.