Evolutionary adaptation to climate change in native grasslands: genetic basis and ecological consequences

Adaptive evolution is essential for populations to keep pace with climate change and persist in their environment. However, we know little about the genomic basis of these rapid responses, or their ecological impacts on coexisting populations of other species. This is unfortunate, as understanding how adaptation works is vital to predicting species that are "winners" and "losers" under environmental change.

This project will make use of the world's longest-running climate manipulation experiment (the Buxton Climate Change Impacts Lab), and linked study sites in the UK and Sweden. We will explore the genomic basis of adaptation driven by drought and warming, and its consequences for species interactions and competition. We will focus on Festuca ovina, a keystone defining grass of upland ecosystems.

Using existing genomic resources and plant collections, experiments, and field work, we will study how results from our experiment at Buxton generalise to the wider landscape. Objectives

Determine if genomic patterns of climatic selection in a long-running climate manipulation experiment are paralleled in natural grasslands Characterise the phenotypic effects of climate-adaptive genes Determine if climate adaptation has consequences for species interactions Novelty

With 30-years of climate manipulations, the Buxton Climate Change Impacts Lab offers a unique opportunity to study climate-driven adaptation in an experimental setting. This project takes the important step of asking how those findings translate into ongoing adaptation to climate change in the wild, and whether such adaptation modifies interactions between species that co-exist in species-rich meadow ecosystems.

Timeliness

This project is based on recent expansion of the study system to natural microclimatic gradients in the Derbyshire Dales and the Baltic Island of Öland, Sweden. It will also make use of new genomic resources from the Darwin Tree of Life project.