Waiting for the snow to melt…
It is unclear how environmental change influences standing genetic variation in wild populations. Here, we characterised envi- ronmental conditions that protect versus erode polymorphic chemical defences in Boechera stricta (Brassicaceae), a short-lived perennial wildflower. By manipulating drought and herbivory in a 4-year field experiment, we measured the effects of driver variation on vital rates of genotypes varying in defence chemistry and then assessed interacting driver effects on total fitness (estimated as each genotype's lineage growth rate, λ) using demographic models. Drought and herbivory interacted to shape vital rates, but contrasting defence genotypes had equivalent total fitness in many environments. Defence polymorphism thus may persist under a range of conditions; however, ambient field conditions fall close to the boundary of putatively polymorphic environment space, and increasing aridity may drive populations to monomorphism. Consequently, elevated intensity and/or frequency of drought under climate change may erode genetic variation for defence chemistry in B. stricta.
Knowledge graph centered on Increasing aridity may threaten the maintenance of with 28 nodes and 145 connections. Top connected: Beetles, Lepidoptera, Boechera stricta, Arabidopsis thaliana, Boechera.
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