Urban-rural gradients: how landscape changes drive adaptive evolution of plant competitive traits

Yuya Fukano, Kei Uchida, Yuuya Tachiki

Abstract

The role of competition in local adaptation and the associated traits underlying adaptation remain unclear. One reason for the lack of evidence may be that plant-plant competition is ubiquitous in natural environments; thus, local adaptation to different levels of competition is difficult to test. Comparison between urban and rural habitats is suitable for examining the evolutionary impacts of competition because these habitats share several plant species, but differ greatly in plant density and their resulting degree of competition. Here, using methods of landscape ecology, we propose a landscape evolutionary ecological approach—a simple analytical framework—to investigate how landscape changes in urban–rural gradients drive the local adaptation of competitive traits. We demonstrated adaptive divergence of competitive traits (i.e. growth habits) between urban and rural populations in two Poaceae plants (Digitaria ciliaris and Eleusine indica) and summarised the experimental procedure to examine local adaptation to different levels of competitive environments. Landscape change due to urbanisation provides an opportunity to understand the drivers and constraints of the evolution of plant competitive traits. Our analytical framework will be useful for integrating research on urban evolution conducted in different countries and regions.

Fukano, Y., Uchida, K., & Tachiki, Y. (2022). Urban-rural gradients: how landscape changes drive adaptive evolution of plant competitive traits. Evolutionary Ecology, 1-18.

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Hannah Gurholt

PhD Student at Cornell University

Hannah Gurholt is a PhD student in the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology department at Cornell University. Her research focuses on addressing the influence of disparities (socioeconomic status (SES) and environmental racism) on urban ecology.

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