Assessing the adaptive role of subindividual trait variation via epigenetic changes for ecosystem functioning under climate change.

Variability is one of the few consistent characteristics of biological systems occurring at different levels of organization, from biomes to individuals.

Moreover, at individual level, a vast amount of trait variation occurs within single individuals of modular organisms such as plants. Subindividual trait variation is mainly due to organ level phenotypic plasticity, and it has an epigenetic basis.

In plants, subindividual trait variation occurs between multiple repeated organs, such as different leaves, fruits, flowers, and which are reruns of the same genotype under different micro-environmental conditions.

Subindividual variation can be larger than among individual or among population variation, being a major source of phenotypic variation in nature.

However, because subindividual variation is generated within individual genotypes, it has been inaccurately assumed to be invisible to ecological or evolutionary processes.

Therefore, its adaptative role to global changes as well as the associated potential impact on ecosystem functioning is currently unknown.

Given the importance of biodiversity for ecosystem functioning and mitigation of anthropogenic change, understanding the evolutionary and ecological consequences of a vast biodiversity asset such as subindividual trait variation is a major scientific and societal challenge.

The main goal of this Marie Sklodowska-Curie fellowship is to evaluate the role of subindividual variation for plant adaptation to climatic change and to quantify the knock-on effects on ecosystem functions.

To achieve this goal MS proposes a multi-generational artificial-selection and ecosystem experiment at a state-of-the-art experimental research facility (the Ecotron of Montpellier) equipped for automatic high-frequency measurements of multiple ecosystem processes (e.g.

CO2 net ecosystem exchange, water use efficiency) and stable isotope 13CO2 labeling (for estimation of soil carbon storage).