About the Author
Cameron So (he/him) is a PhD candidate in Profs. Anna Hargreaves and Daniel Schoen’s labs in the Department of Biology at McGill University in Montréal, Québec, Canada. He is also a student member of the Québec Centre for Biodiversity Science (QCBS). His work focuses on adaptation at species’ range limits and the conservation of species-at-risk in Canada and the US. You can learn more about his research at his website.
About the Award
The American Genetic Association grants Ecological, Evolutionary, and Conservation Genomics (EECG) Research Awards to graduate and post-doctoral researchers who are at a critical point in their research, where additional funds would allow them to conclude their research project and prepare it for publication.
These awards are open to any graduate student or postdoctoral fellow who is a member of the American Genetic Association at the time of application.
At-risk plants are range-edge populations
In Canada, more than 75% of vascular plants that are federally protected by the Species at Risk Act only occur towards the northernmost edge of their range near the US-Canada border (Caissy et al. 2020). However, it is often unclear how important these range-edge populations are to conservation.
On one hand, edge populations could be locally adapted and therefore important for conserving species’ overall genetic diversity and adaptations important for range expansion under climate warming (Lesica & Allendorf 1995; Hargreaves & Eckert 2014). On the other, edge populations could suffer from genetic load and inbreeding depression if populations are small and isolated, making them less valuable and harder to conserve (Willi et al. 2006; Willi et al. 2018; Bontrager et al. 2021). My research tests these two theoretical predictions using the at-risk plant Sundial lupine (Lupinus perennis; Fig. 1).
EECG will support additional sequencing
The most direct approach to test for local adaptation is to reciprocally transplant seed among edge and core populations and compare fitness in each site. However, adaptation may only be evident during extreme years. Therefore, I’m using a combination of field experiments (i.e. reciprocal transplants) and population genomics to test for local adaptation. Specifically, I’m using tests for genotype-environment associations (GEAs) to identify local adaptation to climate and/or soil. The EECG award will partially fund low-coverage whole genome sequencing for 5 range-core and 7 edge populations of Lupinus perennis. These populations span the plant’s northern geographic range from New Hampshire to Ontario to Minnesota (Fig. 3) and will increase my spatial coverage and populations sampled from 7 to 17.
Sundial lupines (Lupinus perennis) are listed as imperiled in Ontario, Canada, and at-risk in at least 16 US states. The plant is also an important food source to at least 3 at-risk butterfly species, including the Karner Blue Butterfly (now extirpated in Canada) and the mottled duskywing (endangered but undergoing recovery in Canada). Thus, results from this study will provide guidance to conservation by providing summaries of genetic health to local, regional, provincial/state, and national organizations including Ontario Parks, the National Park Service, the Nature Conservancy of Canada, Nachusa Grasslands, the City of Toronto, the Grand Traverse Regional Land Conservancy, Lambton Wildlife, US Fish & Wildlife, and multiple state departments.
References
Caissy, P., Klemet-N’Guessan, S., Jackiw, R., Eckert, C. G. & Hargreaves, A. L. High conservation priority of range-edge plant populations not matched by habitat protection or research effort. Biol Conserv 249, 108732 (2020).
Hargreaves, A. L. & Eckert, C. G. Local adaptation primes cold‐edge populations for range expansion but not warming‐induced range shifts. Ecol Lett 22, 78–88 (2019).
Lesica, P. & Allendorf, F. W. When are peripheral populations valuable for conservation? Conservation Biology 9, 753–760 (1995).
Willi, Y., Fracassetti, M., Zoller, S. & Van Buskirk, J. Accumulation of mutational load at the edges of a species range. Mol Biol Evol 35, 781–791 (2018).
Willi, Y., Van Buskirk, J. & Hoffmann, A. A. Limits to the adaptive potential of small populations. Annu Rev Ecol Evol Syst 37, 433–458 (2006).
Bontrager, M. et al. Adaptation across geographic ranges is consistent with strong selection in marginal climates and legacies of range expansion. Evolution (N Y) 75, 1316–1333 (2021).