PARENT SESSION
Contributed Oral Session 82: Landscape and Population Genetics
Wednesday, August 10, 8:00 AM - 11:30 AM, Meeting Room 519 B, Level 5, Palais des congrès de Montréal
Environmental variability and population genetic structure in the Park Grass Experiment.
Jonathan, Silvertown*,1, Biss, Pamela1, Oliver, Barnett1, Freeland, Joanna1, 1 Department of Biological Sciences, Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, United Kingdom
ABSTRACT- The Park Grass Experiment, started in 1856, is the longest-running ecological experiment in existence. The plant communities in the PGE are at dynamic equilibrium where composition on each plot is determined by soil nutrients and pH and perturbation is caused by climatic variation. Plants of at least one grass species, Anthoxanthum odoratum, are locally adapted to soil conditions. Edaphic and climatic factors interact, with populations on acidified plots more subject to drought than those on other plots. We investigated the effect of environmental variability on the population genetic structure of the grasses A. odoratum and Festuca rubra using molecular markers. Using chloroplast microsatellites on archived plant material of A. odoratum indicates that a population on an acid plot may have lost haplotype diversity during drought, compared to controls. Nuclear microsatellite markers in F. rubra suggest that environmental change favours sexual over clonal reproduction in this species which is capable of both modes of reproduction.
Key words: population genetic structure, Festuca rubra, grassland, Anthoxanthum odoratum