Oral Paper

         Conservation Biology

Developing a common garden array to test adaptive genetic variation in priority restoration forb species in the Great Basin of the United States

Presenting Author
Francis Kilkenny
Description
Seed transfer zones, developed from common garden data, can guide the selection and use of locally adapted plant materials in restoration. However, common garden studies are costly and time consuming. For logistical reasons, study approaches have emphasized either general models of adaptive variation across a species range (genecological studies) or the specific responses of a few seed sources across a range of environments (reciprocal transplant studies). Both axes of information are needed in the era of climate change, which requires flexible and dynamic seed transfer tools. A promising hybrid approach is to use common garden arrays where a large number of seed sources are planted in a set of sites that sufficiently cover the “environmental space” experienced by the study species; generating datasets on both general adaptive patterns and individual source variation in environmental response. Common garden array approaches can also generate economies of scale if technical resources are distributed efficiently and multiple species are tested simultaneously. This talk will describe the development of a common garden array in the Great Basin of the United States, run by a partnership of research groups and land management agencies, to develop high quality data on adaptive variation in multiple forb species. Currently, this array is made up of nine common garden sites covering a wide range of environments. Five priority restoration forb species have been planted and are being monitored, with four additional species in the pipeline. Some preliminary data will be shown.