Relationships between adaptive and neutral genetic diversity and ecological structure and functioning: a meta-analysis

Understanding the effects of intraspecific genetic diversity on the structure and functioning of ecological communities is a fundamentally important part of evolutionary ecology and may also have conservation relevance in identifying the situations in which genetic diversity coincides with species‐level diversity. Early studies within this field documented positive relationships between genetic diversity and ecological structure, but recent studies have challenged these findings. Conceptual synthesis has been hampered because studies have used different measures of intraspecific variation (phenotypically adaptive vs. neutral) and have considered different measures of ecological structure in different ecological and spatial contexts. The aim of this study is to strengthen conceptual understanding by providing an empirical synthesis quantifying the relationship between genetic diversity and ecological structure. Here, I present a meta‐analysis of the relationship between genetic diversity within plant populations and the structure and functioning of associated ecological communities (including 423 effect sizes from 70 studies). I used Bayesian meta‐analyses to examine (i) the strength and direction of this relationship, (ii) the extent to which phenotypically adaptive and neutral (molecular) measures of diversity differ in their association with ecological structure and (iii) variation in outcomes among different measures of ecological structure and in different ecological contexts. Effect sizes measuring the relationship between adaptive diversity (genotypic richness) and both community‐ and ecosystem‐level ecological responses were small, but significantly positive. These associations were supported by genetic effects on species richness and productivity, respectively. There was no overall association between neutral genetic diversity and measures of ecological structure, but a positive correlation was observed under a limited set of demographic conditions. These results suggest that adaptive and neutral genetic diversity should not be treated as ecologically equivalent measures of intraspecific variation. Synthesis. This study advances the debate over whether relationships between genetic diversity and ecological structure are either simply positive or negative, by showing how the strength and direction of these relationships changes with different measures of diversity and in different ecological contexts. The results provide a solid foundation for assessing when and where an expanded synthesis between ecology and genetics will be most fruitful

Rapid genetic divergence in response to 15 years of simulated climate change

Genetic diversity may play an important role in allowing individual species to resist climate change, by permitting evolutionary responses. Our understanding of the potential for such responses to climate change remains limited, and very few experimental tests have been carried out within intact ecosystems. Here, we use amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) data to assess genetic divergence and test for signatures of evolutionary change driven by long-term simulated climate change applied to natural grassland at Buxton Climate Change Impacts Laboratory (BCCIL). Experimental climate treatments were applied to grassland plots for 15 years using a replicated and spatially blocked design and included warming, drought and precipitation treatments. We detected significant genetic differentiation between climate change treatments and control plots in two coexisting perennial plant study species (Festuca ovina and Plantago lanceolata). Outlier analyses revealed a consistent signature of selection associated with experimental climate treatments at individual AFLP loci in P. lanceolata, but not in F. ovina. Average background differentiation at putatively neutral AFLP loci was close to zero, and genomewide genetic structure was associated neither with species abundance changes (demography) nor with plant community-level responses to long-term climate treatments. Our results demonstrate genetic divergence in response to a suite of climatic environments in reproductively mature populations of two perennial plant species and are consistent with an evolutionary response to climatic selection in P. lanceolata. These genetic changes have occurred in parallel with impacts on plant community structure and may have contributed to the persistence of individual species through 15 years of simulated climate change at BCCIL

Climate‐driven evolutionary change in reproductive and early‐acting life‐history traits in the perennial grass Festuca ovina

Reproductive and early‐acting life‐history traits are likely to be particularly important determinants of plant fitness under a changing climate. There have, however, been few robust tests of the evolution of these traits under chronic climate change in natural ecosystems. Such studies are urgently needed, to evaluate the contribution of evolutionary change to population persistence. Here, we examine climate‐driven evolutionary change in reproductive and early‐acting plant life‐history traits in the long‐lived perennial plant, Festuca ovina. We collected established plants of F. ovina from species‐rich calcareous grassland at the Buxton Climate Change Impacts Laboratory (BCCIL), after 17 years of in situ experimental drought treatment. P1 plants collected from drought‐treated and control (ambient climate) plots at BCCIL were used to create an open‐pollinated F1 progeny array, which was subsequently validated using microsatellite markers to establish a robust bi‐parental pedigree. We measured the timing of germination and seed mass in the F1 progeny, the P1 paternal contribution to F1 offspring (paternal reproductive success), and assessed the effects of flowering time on the mating system. F1 seed with ancestry in drought‐treated plots at BCCIL germinated significantly later than seed derived from individuals from control plots. P1 plants from the drought treatment flowered significantly earlier than those from the control plots in summer 2012, but not in 2013. Male reproductive success was also lower in P1 plants collected from drought plots than those from control plots. Furthermore, our pedigree revealed that mating among parents of the F1 progeny had been assortative with respect to flowering time. Synthesis. Our study shows that chronic drought treatment at Buxton Climate Change Impacts Laboratory has driven rapid evolutionary change in reproductive and early‐acting life‐history traits in Festuca ovina, and suggests that evolutionary differentiation may be reinforced through changes in flowering time that reduce the potential for gene flow

A systematic review of phenotypic responses to between-population outbreeding

This work was supported by the UK Population Biology Network, through funding from the Natural Environment Research Council and Natural England. We thank Jack Brodie, Helen Hipperson, Marie Chadburn and Sophie Allen for assistance with literature searching, article assessment and data extraction. We also thank our review group for constructive criticism on the scope, development and structure of this review, and two peer reviewers for useful feedback on the review protocol. Finally we thank three peer reviewers who each provided constructive comments on this systematic review report.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Adaptation to chronic drought modifies soil microbial community responses to phytohormones

Drought imposes stress on plants and associated soil microbes, inducing coordinated adaptive responses, which can involve plant–soil signalling via phytohormones. However, we know little about how microbial communities respond to phytohormones, or how these responses are shaped by chronic (long-term) drought. Here, we added three phytohormones (abscisic acid, 1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylic acid, and jasmonic acid) to soils from long-term (25-year), field-based climate treatments to test the hypothesis that chronic drought alters soil microbial community responses to plant stress signalling. Phytohormone addition increased soil respiration, but this effect was stronger in irrigated than in droughted soils and increased soil respiration at low phytohormone concentrations could not be explained by their use as substrate. Thus, we show that drought adaptation within soil microbial communities modifies their responses to phytohormone inputs. Furthermore, distinct phytohormone-induced shifts in microbial functional groups in droughted vs. irrigated soils might suggest that drought-adapted soil microorganisms perceive phytohormones as stress-signals, allowing them to anticipate impending drought

A pilot evaluation of appetite-awareness training in the treatment of childhood overweight and obesity: A preliminary investigation

Objective: The aim of this study was to conduct a preliminary evaluation of Children’s Appetite Awareness Training (CAAT), a treatment for childhood obesity which encourages overweight children to eat in response to internal appetite cues.Method: Overweight children (ages 6–12 years old) were randomized to either the CAAT treatment group (N 5 23), to receive 1-h treatment sessions over 6 weeks, or a wait-list group (N 5 24). Weight and height of children and parents in both groups were assessed at pre- and post-treatment (or equivalent time for wait-list control) and at a 6-month follow-up for those in the CAAT group.Results: The intervention had a significant, short-term effect on the BMI of children who participated. Although at 6-month follow-up, children’s BMI has not increased significantly, the difference between pre-treatment and follow- up BMI was no longer significant.Discussion: These results are encouraging for the use of CAAT with overweight children. Long-term effectiveness could be enhanced through increasing the duration of the program, adding booster sessions and increased involvement of parents

Pengembangan Materi Multibahasa untuk Siswa Pesantren

ABSTRAK Tujuan penelitian ini adalah: (1) untuk menginvestigasi implementasi pembelajaran multibahasa di pesantren; (2) untuk mengeksplor kebutuhan siswa, guru, dan stakeholder pesantren akan materi pembelajaran multibahasa; (3) untuk mengembangkan materi pembelajaran multibahasa yang dapat meningkatkan kemampuan berbicara multibahasa; (4) untuk mengukur efektifitas materi pembelajaran multibahasa yang telah dikembangkan. Metode penelitian ini adalah Research and Development (R&D) dengan menggunakan model Borg & Gall. Penelitian ini telah dilaksanakan Pesantren IMMIM, Pesantren Pondok Madinah, dan Pesantren Darul Arqam Muhammadiyah Gombara di kota Makassar yang dipilih secara purposive dan random untuk terlibat dalam penelitian ini sesuai dengan tahapan-tahapan R&D. Instrumen yang digunakan untuk mengumpulkan data adalah observasi, interview, angket untuk need analysis, tes berbicara, dan dokumentasi dari aktifitas belajar-mengajar di pesantren. Data kualitatif dianalisa secara diskriptif melalui tiga tahapan model yaitu, penyajian, reduksi, dan perifikasi. Data yang diperoleh dari angket analisa kebutuhan dianalisa secara diskriptif menggunakan analisa SWOT. Data kuantitatif dari spoken tes dan angket acceptability dan aplikability dari materi yang telah dikembangkan dianalisa menggunakan SPPP versi 17.0. Hasil dari penelitian ini ditemukan: (1) implementsi pembelajaran multibahasa menngunakan eklektik (penggabungan) beberapa pendekatan termasuk immersion, transitional, dual language, dan pullout. Selain itu juga menggunakan empat strategi utama yaitu; komunikasi guru-siswa,hubungan siswa dan siswa lain, rutinitas sehari-hari, dan aktifitas grup bahasa. Sedangkan model pengajarannya menggunakan MTB bersamaan-bertahap; (2) siswa, guru, dan stakeholder butuh mempelajari multibahasa untuk berkomunikasi dengan native speaker, berorientasi masa depan menggunakan bahasa non formal. Komponen prioritas dari pembelajaran multibahasa mencakup kosa kata dan dialog sehari-hari, mereka juga membutuhkan materi multibahasa yang tepat seperti silabus, RPP, dan buku ajar; (3) menyesuaikan materi multibahasa dengan silabus, RPP, dan buku ajar yang telah ada; (4) hasil analisa dari semua pretes dan posttest pada uji coba skala kecil, sedang, dan besar menunjukkan bahwa nilai probability adalah (0.00) lebih kecil dibanding tingkat signifikansi pada t-tabel (0.05). Jadi, peneliti menyimpulkan bahwa pengembangan materi ajar mutibahasa sangat memberikan kontribusi dan efektifitas terhadap pembelajaran multibahasa di pesantren

Data from: Relationships between adaptive and neutral genetic diversity and ecological structure and function: a meta-analysis

1. Understanding the effects of intraspecific genetic diversity on the structure and functioning of ecological communities is a fundamentally important part of evolutionary ecology and may also have conservation relevance in identifying the situations in which genetic diversity coincides with species-level diversity. 2. Early studies within this field documented positive relationships between genetic diversity and ecological structure, but recent studies have challenged these findings. Conceptual synthesis has been hampered because studies have used different measures of intraspecific variation (phenotypically adaptive vs. neutral) and have considered different measures of ecological structure in different ecological and spatial contexts. The aim of this study is to strengthen conceptual understanding by providing an empirical synthesis quantifying the relationship between genetic diversity and ecological structure. 3. Here, I present a meta-analysis of the relationship between genetic diversity within plant populations and the structure and functioning of associated ecological communities (including 423 effect sizes from 70 studies). I used Bayesian meta-analyses to examine (i) the strength and direction of this relationship, (ii) the extent to which phenotypically adaptive and neutral (molecular) measures of diversity differ in their association with ecological structure and (iii) variation in outcomes among different measures of ecological structure and in different ecological contexts. 4. Effect sizes measuring the relationship between adaptive diversity (genotypic richness) and both community- and ecosystem-level ecological responses were small, but significantly positive. These associations were supported by genetic effects on species richness and productivity, respectively. 4. There was no overall association between neutral genetic diversity and measures of ecological structure, but a positive correlation was observed under a limited set of demographic conditions. These results suggest that adaptive and neutral genetic diversity should not be treated as ecologically equivalent measures of intraspecific variation. 5. Synthesis. This study advances the debate over whether relationships between genetic diversity and ecological structure are either simply positive or negative, by showing how the strength and direction of these relationships changes with different measures of diversity and in different ecological contexts. The results provide a solid foundation for assessing when and where an expanded synthesis between ecology and genetics will be most fruitful

Community-genetic effect size estimates and predictor variables

This file contains effect sizes describing the relationship between population-level genetic diversity in plant species and measures of the structure and functioning of associated communities and ecosystems. Each effect size is accompanied by a measurement error variance estimate describing the precision of the corresponding effect size. The remaining data in these tables comprise sources of heterogeneity (predictor variables) used in the meta-analyses, and other descriptive information relating to the studies used in the review. There are two effect size datasets, one for adaptive (genotypic) measures of genetic diversity (sheet "d"), and one for neutral molecular measures of genetic diversity (sheet "z(r)")