Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Individual

Mating and reproduction directly affect gene transmission to subsequent generations, and in doing so, play central roles in determining overall organismal fitness. My lab studies the ecology and evolution of plant mating and reproductive systems with the larger goal of understanding the processes affecting fitness and adaptive evolution in flowering plants. Flowering plants are among the most diverse groups of organisms and the origins of that diversity are at least partly attributable to adaptive evolution of mating and reproductive systems. Understanding the ecology and evolution of mating and reproduction is also crucial for conservation efforts-major threats to species persistence including habitat fragmentation, invasive species, and climate change affect populations via mating and reproductive success. This proposal outlines a program of research that will test core hypotheses for adaptive evolution of mating and reproductive systems using experimental analyses of: (1) the underpinnings of sexual selection using a manipulative field experiment with plants with known genotypes to enable tracking mating and reproductive success; (2) previously untested theory of the ecological conditions affecting overall fitness via during the seed-dispersal phase; (3) the ecological conditions that drive evolutionary transitions from predominant outcrossing to self-fertilization; (4) the ecological and evolutionary genetic consequences of species invasions via hybridization. The experiments outlined in this proposal are entirely novel and have been designed to make significant advances in our understanding of the ecology and evolution of mating and reproduction in plants.   The research proposed here will enable the training of 16 HQP to address these topics using a combination of field, experimental, and lab work. They will use two study systems: (1) self-compatible and self-incompatible lyre-leaved rock-cress (Arabidopsis lyrata) and (2) native cattails (Typha latifolia), introduced cattails (Typha angustifolia) and their invasive hybrid descendants. For both groups of plants, HQP in my lab have been developing single-nucleotide polymoprhism (SNP)-based markers and we will use these markers to examine mating patterns, and to estimate mating success, reproductive fitness, and hybridization rates in natural and experimental populations. Both plants are proven experimental systems in the lab and are well suited to the projects outlined in this proposal. In the case of cattails, our studies will also contribute to the development of management strategies for the restoration of wetlands in eastern North America, which have become dominated by invasive hybrid cattails known to disrupt the function and the plant and animal diversity of wetlands.