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Natural variation for drought-response traits in the Mimulus guttatus species complex

  • Physiological Ecology - Original Paper
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Abstract

Soil moisture is a key factor affecting plant abundance and distribution, both across and within species. In response to water limitation, plants have evolved numerous morphological, physiological, and phenological adaptations. In both well-watered and water-limited conditions, we identified considerable natural variation in drought-related whole-plant and leaf-level traits among closely related members of the Mimulus guttatus species complex that occupy a diversity of habitats in the field. The self-fertilizing Mimulus nasutus and serpentine-endemic Mimulus nudatus demonstrated the overall greatest tolerance to soil water limitation, exhibiting the smallest reduction in seed set relative to well-watered conditions. This may be due in part to early flowering, faster fruit development, and low stomatal density. In contrast, flowering of coastal M. guttatus was so delayed that it precluded any seed production in water-limited conditions. This range of phenotypic responses to soil water deficit in Mimulus, coupled with developing genomic resources, holds considerable promise for identifying genomic variation responsible for adaptive responses to soil water availability.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Meg Peterson, Calvin Sheng, Eugene Wu, and Mike Yan for assistance at various stages of the experiments, Chantal Reid for discussions of plant physiology, Diane Campbell for statistical advice, and two anonymous reviewers for comments that improved this manuscript. This work was funded by the National Science Foundation though FIBR Grant EF-0328636, Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant DEB-0710094, and Environmental Genomics Grant EF-0723814.

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  1. Carrie A. Wu

    Present address: Department of Biology, University of Richmond, Richmond, VA, 23173, USA

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  1. Department of Biology, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA

    Carrie A. Wu, David B. Lowry, Laura I. Nutter & John H. Willis

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  1. Carrie A. Wu
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Correspondence to Carrie A. Wu.

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Communicated by Todd Dawson.

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Wu, C.A., Lowry, D.B., Nutter, L.I. et al. Natural variation for drought-response traits in the Mimulus guttatus species complex. Oecologia 162, 23–33 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-009-1448-0

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