DOI: 10.5061/dryad.t690j3p
title: Data from: Evolutionary potential of a widespread clonal grass under changing climate

description: Adaptive responses are probably the most effective long-term responses of
 populations to climate change, but they require sufficient evolutionary
 potential upon which selection can act. This requires high genetic
 variance for the traits under selection, and low antagonizing genetic
 covariances between the different traits. Evolutionary potential estimates
 are still scarce for long-lived, clonal plants, although these species are
 predicted to dominate the landscape with climate change. We studied the
 evolutionary potential of a perennial grass, Festuca rubra, in western
 Norway, in two controlled environments corresponding to extreme
 environments in natural populations: cold-dry and warm-wet, the latter
 being consistent with the climatic predictions for the country. We
 estimated genetic variances, covariances, selection gradients and response
 to selection for a wide range of growth, resource acquisition and
 physiological traits, and compared their estimates between the
 environments. We showed that the evolutionary potential of F. rubra is
 high in both environments, and genetic covariances define one main
 direction along which selection can act with relatively few constraints to
 selection. The observed response to selection at present is not sufficient
 to produce genotypes adapted to the predicted climate change under a
 simple, space for time substitution model. However, the current
 populations contain genotypes which are pre-adapted to the new climate,
 especially for growth and resource acquisition traits. Overall, these
 results suggest that the present populations of the long-lived clonal
 plant may have sufficient evolutionary potential to withstand long-term
 climate changes through adaptive responses. We studied the evolutionary
 potential of a perennial grass, Festuca rubra, in western Norway, in two
 controlled environments corresponding to extreme environments in natural
 populations: cold-dry and warm-wet, the latter being consistent with the
 climatic predictions for the country. We estimated genetic variances,
 covariances, selection gradients and response to selection for a wide
 range of growth, resource acquisition and physiological traits, and
 compared their estimates between the environments. We showed that the
 evolutionary potential of F. rubra is high in both environments, and
 genetic covariances define one main direction along which selection can
 act with relatively few constraints to selection. The observed response to
 selection at present is not sufficient to produce genotypes adapted to the
 predicted climate change under a simple, space for time substitution
 model. However, the current populations contain genotypes which are
 pre-adapted to the new climate, especially for growth and resource
 acquisition traits. Overall, these results suggest that the present
 populations of the long-lived clonal plant may have sufficient
 evolutionary potential to withstand long-term climate changes through
 adaptive responses.
description: Stojanova_et_al_F.rubra_heritability_JEB_2019The data contains Loiselle's kinship matrices estimated from 5 microsatellite markers, and phenotypic traits measured on plants from a maternal half-sib design, grown in two growth chambers. All variable names are described in the ReadMe worksheet. For detailed description of the plant material and study design see Stojanova et al, "Evolutionary potential of a clonal grass under climate change" published in the Journal of Evolutionary Biology