Quantifying how fine-grained environmental heterogeneity and genetic variation affect demography in an annual plant population

Abstract

The ability of plant species to colonize new habitats and persist in changing environments depends on their ability to respond plastically to environmental variation and on the presence of genetic variation, thus allowing adaptation to new conditions. For invasive species in particular, the relationship between phenotypic trait expression, demography, and the quantitative genetic variation that is available to respond to selection are likely to be important determinants of the successful establishment and persistence of populations. However, the magnitude and sources of individual demographic variation in exotic plant populations remain poorly understood. How important is plasticity versus adaptability in populations of invasive species? Among environmental factors, is temperature, soil nutrients, or competition most influential, and at what scales and life stages do they affect the plants? To investigate these questions we planted seeds of the exotic annual plant Erodium brachycarpum into typical pasture habitat in a spatially nested design. Seeds were drawn from 30 inbred lines to enable quantification of genetic effects. Despite a positive population growth rate, a few plants (0.1 %) produced >50 % of the seeds, suggesting a low effective population size. Emergence and early growth varied by genotype, but as in previous studies on native plants, environmental effects greatly exceeded genetic effects, and survival was unrelated to genotype. Environmental influences shifted from microscale soil compaction and litter depth at emergence through to larger-scale soil nutrient gradients during growth and to competition during later survival and seed production. Temperature had no effect. Most demographic rates were positively correlated, but emergence was negatively correlated with other rates.