Historical and Geographic Context for the Evolution of Climate Niche Breadth in Temperate Plants

In order to predict how species will respond to global climate change, scientists must understand the relationships between traits, fitness, environments and distributions. Niche theory provides a useful framework. Niche breadth describes the range of environmental conditions necessary for population growth. Among these conditions, climate is especially important. Climate niche breadth in turn may reflect a confluence of different forces. This dissertation presents a series of projects that assess the relative roles of historical, geographic and population processes that contribute to climate niche breadth in temperate plants. The first project evaluates the predictive power of a classical hypothesis. If gene flow slows divergent adaptation, then range fragmentation should promote niche breadth. By quantifying the relationships between environmental difference, geographic distance and genetic isolation among European plants, I show that the effect of allopatry on niche breadth depends on the role of the geographic distance among populations. The remaining projects focus in increasingly finer detail on the evolution of niche breadth in a taxonomically complex group. <italic>Dodecatheon<italic> sect. <italic>Dodecatheon<italic> grow in diverse habitats across North America. They have confounded taxonomists with polyploidy, hybridization and convergent adaptation. Currently recognized species are either widespread or rare microclimate specialists. First, with multilocus phylogenetics, I show that the difference in niche breadth among rare and widespread species is not simply due to differences in environmental tolerance. In eastern North America, geographic heterogeneity and paleoclimate history strongly contribute to taxonomic rarity. The next project focuses on this group. Both rare eastern species are considered glacial relicts. I test this hypothesis by combining ecophysiological and population genetic data in a new phylogeographic framework. The analysis shows that the match between traits and habitats is largely due to local gene flow and selection rather than migration and habitat sorting. Finally, through morphometrics, cytology, population genetics and greenhouse experiments, I show that dynamic polyploidy permits local movement of alleles between rare and widespread taxa. Overall, these results suggest that anthropogenic climate change may threaten biodiversity not by forcing impossible migrations, but by promoting hybridization and complicating taxonomy just as it has in the past.

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Biology and Biomedical Sciences: Evolution, Ecology and Population Biology

Year dc:date.available

2009

Author dc:creator

• Oberle, Brad

Contributors dc:contributor

• Barbara Schaal

• Biology
• Botany
• Ecology
• Climate Change
• Dodecatheon
• Evolution
• Plant

Language dc:language

English (en)

DOI

https://doi.org/10.7936/K7TM784N

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:openscholarship.wustl.edu:etd-1262