Author: rjbest

New paper on plasticity in cottonwood leaf venation and stomatal traits

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Iris Garthwaite, a former Master’s student and NSF GRFP recipient now at the USGS, dug into lab techniques and image analysis for quantifying leaf venation and stomatal traits for her recent paper in Ecology and Evolution: https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.70683. Along with two former undergraduates in our lab, Catherine Lepp and Zyled Rodriguez, she found clear consequences of these traits for tree growth at the hot edge of Fremont cottonwood’s range:
but also complex patterns of genotype-specific plasticity that are not easily explained by selection in more predictably variable environments:
Her research raises a lot of interesting questions about the consequences of past and future climate variability for evolutionary and ecological responses in riparian forest ecosystems already experiencing major declines!

New paper from lab alum shows the power of hyperspectral data to predict genetic and environmental effects on cottonwood leaves

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Dr. Jackie Corbin, who now works on actually applying restoration principles with NRCS, used hyperspectral reflectance of Fremont cottonwood leaves growing in multiple common gardens and at home to detect genetic, environmental, and gxe effects on spectral traits https://doi.org/10.1111/pce.15263. She showed we can detect a tree’s population of origin with high accuracy, even in a controlled environment, and also that common spectral indicators of photosynthetic capacity decline as trees are planted in hotter temperatures than they have evolved to deal with. Read all about it, open access in Plant, Cell, and Environment.

New paper from lab alum Sarah Sterner!

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With co-advisor Clare Aslan (NAU SES) and co-author Todd Chaudhry (National Park Service), Sarah found that forest management approaches across multiple agencies shapes ecological responses to major wildfires. 

Sterner, S.A.**, C.E. Aslan, R.J. Best, and T. Chaudhry. 2022. Forest management effects on vegetation regeneration after a high severity wildfire: A case study in the southern Cascade range. Forest Ecology and Management 520: 120394. link

Using the Reading Fire as a case study crossing Lassen National Park and Lassen National Forest boundaries, Sarah showed that both management before a fire, such as fire suppression or harvesting, and management after a fire, such as restoration and replanting, shaped the composition and density of forest vegetation. Sarah combined both field surveys and remote sensing to assemble both short and long-term perspectives on fire and forest management, which is increasingly important to understand across the warming American West. You can read her paper here!

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New paper – climatic divergence in cottonwoods shapes plastic responses to both climate and insect herbivory

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Congrats to former Lindroth Lab postdoc Mike Eisenring (now a Researcher at the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research) on this great new paper about intraspecific variation in phenotypic plasticity! Mike found that cottonwood trees from cooler climates show higher plasticity in defensive chemistry in response to both climate and herbivory, until you stress them out with a combination of both. Great collaboration between UW Madison and cottonwood ecologists at the NAU Center for Adaptable Western Landscapes, supported by our Bridging Ecology and Evolution NSF grant!

 

Eisenring, M., R.J. Best, M.R. Zierden, H.F. Cooper, M.A. Norstrem, T.G. Whitham, K. Grady, G.J. Allan, and R.L. Lindroth. 2022. Genetic divergence along a climate gradient shapes chemical plasticity of a foundation tree species to both changing climate and herbivore damage. Global Change Biology. open access link

New paper – community consequences of phenotypic plasticity

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J.R. Jeplawy, H.F. Cooper, J. Marks, R.L. Lindroth, M.I. Andrews, Z.G. Compson, C. Gehring, K.R. Hultine, K. Grady, T.G. Whitham, G.J. Allan, and R.J. Best. 2021. Plastic responses to hot temperatures homogenize riparian leaf litter, speed decomposition, and reduce detritivores. Ecology 102:e03461. link

 

Riparian ecosystems are shaped by leaf litter traits that depend on both local adaptation and plasticity across a climate gradient. MS student Joann Jeplawy used 6 populations and 3 common gardens of Fremont cottonwood across Arizona.Image

She found that trees growing in hot conditions made small and fast-decomposing leaves, whereas cold conditions allowed trees from different origins to express a wide range of traits and decomposition rates. 

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And leaf traits and decomp rates matter for aquatic detritivore communities, shaping abundance, diversity, and composition. So, how will climate change affect stream communities? Past evolution and current acclimation in foundation species both play a role!
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Congrats Lauren and Joshua!

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Congratulations to undergrad researchers Lauren and Joshua! Presenting their poster and video at the 2020 University Virtual Symposium poster, they earned the First Place Award for the Department of Biological Science, made possible through the contribution of the Craig Family Elevate Award for Sciences.