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Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences
Environmental Variation, Stochastic Extinction, And Competitive Coexistence, Peter B. Adler, John M. Drake
Environmental Variation, Stochastic Extinction, And Competitive Coexistence, Peter B. Adler, John M. Drake
Wildland Resources Faculty Publications
Understanding how environmental fluctuations affect population persistence is essential for predicting the ecological impacts of expected future increases in climate variability. However, two bodies of theory make opposite predictions about the effect of environmental variation on persistence. Single‐species theory, common in conservation biology and population viability analyses, suggests that environmental variation increases the risk of stochastic extinction. By contrast, coexistence theory has shown that environmental variation can buffer inferior competitors against competitive exclusion through a storage effect. We reconcile these two perspectives by showing that in the presence of demographic stochasticity, environmental variation can increase the chance of extinction while …
Quantitative-Genetic Variation In Morphological And Physiological Traits Within A Quaking Aspen (Populus Tremuloides) Population, Megan K. Kanaga, Ronald J. Ryel, Karen E. Mock, Michael E. Pfrender
Quantitative-Genetic Variation In Morphological And Physiological Traits Within A Quaking Aspen (Populus Tremuloides) Population, Megan K. Kanaga, Ronald J. Ryel, Karen E. Mock, Michael E. Pfrender
Wildland Resources Faculty Publications
Genetic diversity within populations is an important component of adaptive evolution, and recent research has demonstrated that genetic variation within plant populations can have important ecological effects. In this study, we investigate quantitative-genetic variation in several traits within a quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides Michx.) population. A common garden experiment was planted with replicates of 13 aspen genotypes collected from wet and dry sites within a population in southern Utah, USA. Ten growth, leaf, physiological, and structural traits were measured. There were significant, heritable phenotypic differences among genotypes in every measured trait and differences in 4 of the 10 traits among …