Sedgwick Reserve

20 Apr, 04 AM - 21 Apr, 07 AM

I am interested in using E. cicutarium as a model system in which to test some long standing hypotheses about the relationship between patterns of environmental heterogeneity and the evolution of phenotypic plasticity and maternal environmental effects. It has often been assumed that habitats with greater fine grained heterogeneity (within the spatial scale of seed dispersal) should favor the expression of phenotypic plasticity as a mechanism for lineages to respond to environmental variation across generations. Additionally, moderate levels of heterogeneity, either spatial of temporal, should favor the evolution of adaptive maternal environmental effects. In the process of an invasion it is likely that some genetic bottlenecking occurs between ancestral and introduced ranges as a result of small numbers of individuals from the ancestral range establishing populations in the introduced range. This has been demonstrated in the goat grass invasion of Northern California by my co-advisor Kevin Rice. If populations in the introduced range have significantly lower genetic diversity they may rely more heavily on phenotypic plasticity and maternal environmental effects to respond to environmental heterogeneity because they lack sufficient genetic variation to respond via genetic differentiation and adaptation. I am interested in addressing the following broad questions using some field data collection, seed collections, and greenhouse experiments: 1. Do genotypes of Erodium cicutarium from ancestral and introduced ranges differ in the level of phenotypic plasticity and maternal environmental effects expressed in response to environmental variation? 2. Do genotypes from habitats with greater levels of environmental heterogeneity express greater levels of phenotypic plasticity and maternal environmental effects? If so, are these responses adaptive?

Visit #15062 @Sedgwick Reserve

Approved

Under Project # 9919 | Research

Understanding the role of plasticity and genetic variation in parallel invasion fronts: Study of the range expansion of Erodium cicutarium in Chile and California.

research_scientist - University of California, Davis

Reservation Members(s)

Brooke Baythavong Apr 20 - 21, 2008 (2 days)

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Studio Apartment 1 Apr 20 - 21, 2008