Hiking up to the next plot…
Like color and shape, floral scent helps plants communicate with animals. But attraction via scent is not limited to pollinators, scent can also attract herbivores and, potentially, the natural enemies of these herbivores. Likewise, even while attracting some species, scent can repel others. Thus, floral scent plays many important roles in the ecology and reproductive biology of the plants which produce it. There is enormous variation in floral scent both between and within plant species, and this holds implications for variation in the interactions between individual plants and their environments. However, variation in scent within and among plant species remains poorly understood. Some populations of silvery lupine (Lupinus argenteus) have conspicuously strong scent, while others seem completely scentless. This variation appears to depend on elevation, with populations high in the alpine zone emitting strong scent, and lower montane and sub-alpine populations emitting little if any scent, and populations at intermediate elevations exhibiting a mixture of these traits. In 2017 and 2018 we analyzed lupine scent from one sub-alpine, one alpine, and one intermediate population near RMBL. We found that these populations showed strong differences in scent characteristics, and that, in the intermediate population, some individuals produce more alpine- or subalpine-like scent characteristics. We hope to conduct further studies to try to understand which factors are important for generation this variation, what the significance of this variation is for the plants and the animals that they interact with, and whether and how climate change may affect these plant traits and their impact on their communities.