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Soil-mediated local adaptation alters seedling survival and performance

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Abstract

Background and aims

Soils can act as agents of natural selection, causing differential fitness among genotypes and/or families of the same plant species, especially when soils have extreme physical or chemical properties. More subtle changes in soils, such as variation in microbial communities, may also act as agents of selection. We hypothesized that variation in soil properties within a single river drainage can be a selective gradient, driving local adaptation in plants.

Methods

Using seeds collected from individual genotypes of Populus angustifolia James and soils collected from underneath the same trees, we use a reciprocal transplant design to test whether seedlings would be locally adapted to their parental soil type.

Results

We found three patterns: 1. Soils from beneath individual genotypes varied in pH, soil texture, nutrient content, microbial biomass and the physiological status of microorganisms. 2. Seedlings grown in local soils experienced 2.5-fold greater survival than seedlings planted in non-local soils. 3. Using a composite of height, number of leaves and leaf area to measure plant growth, seedlings grew ∼17.5% larger in their local soil than in non-local soil.

Conclusions

These data support the hypothesis that variation in soils across subtle gradients can act as an important selective agent, causing differential fitness and local adaptation in plants.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank Clara Pregitzer, Todd Wojtowicz, Nashelly Meneses, Rocio Meneses, Brad Blake and Phil Patterson for their help in the field or greenhouse. Special thanks to Steve Overby and Dana Erickson (U.S. Forest Service, RMRS) for lab space and support for the PLFA/NFLA analyses. We would also like to thank Dylan Fischer and two anonymous reviewers for their comments, which greatly improved the manuscript. This research was supported by a National Science Foundation IGERT traineeship awarded to D.S.S. and by National Science Foundation FIBR grant DEB-0425908.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biological Sciences and Merriam-Powell Center for Environmental Research, Northern Arizona University, P.O. Box 5640, Flagstaff, AZ, 86011-5640, USA

    David Solance Smith, Stephen M. Shuster & Thomas G. Whitham

  2. Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, 37996, USA

    Jennifer A. Schweitzer & Joseph K. Bailey

  3. School of Plant Science, University of Tasmania, Hobart, Tasmania, 7001, Australia

    Jennifer A. Schweitzer & Joseph K. Bailey

  4. Department of Statistics, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV, 26506, USA

    Philip Turk

  5. School of Natural Sciences and Sierra Nevada Research Institute, University of California, Merced, CA, 95344, USA

    Stephen C. Hart

Authors
  1. David Solance Smith
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  2. Jennifer A. Schweitzer
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  3. Philip Turk
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  4. Joseph K. Bailey
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  5. Stephen C. Hart
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  6. Stephen M. Shuster
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  7. Thomas G. Whitham
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to David Solance Smith.

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Responsible Editor: Harry Olde Venterink.

Electronic supplementary material

Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.

Online Resource 1

Design matrix for examining differential survival and performance between local and non-local soils. This graphic depicts how the five source soils were classified as local or non-local. Soils were considered local when seeds, which were collected from the same tree as the soil, were planted in that soil. Conversely, soils were considered non-local when seedlings collected from a different tree were planted in the soil. (PDF 34 kb)

Online Resource 2

Matrix of survival of all seedling families in all five soils. The black bars represent survival in local soils and gray bars represent survival in non-local soils. The numbers on the y-axis are the percent survival in each soil. (PDF 46 kb)

Online Resource 3

Table of statistics showing all of the analyses, what they tested, their respective test statistic and their corresponding p-value or confidence interval. (DOC 24 kb)

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Smith, D.S., Schweitzer, J.A., Turk, P. et al. Soil-mediated local adaptation alters seedling survival and performance. Plant Soil 352, 243–251 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-011-0992-7

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