DOI: 10.5061/dryad.cz8w9gjd7
title: Plasticity and adaptation of northern California eelgrass in response to sediment conditions

description: Considerable research describes the interactions between seagrasses and
 their sedimentary environment, but there is little information on how
 populations differ in their innate versus plastic responses to these
 differences. Here, we test whether sediment contributes to eelgrass
 population differentiation and the nature of plastic responses to
 different sediment environments. We do this via a 15-week, fully crossed
 common garden experiment with two populations and their native sediment
 types. Plants from the warmer-temperature, clay-dominated site (90% silt +
 clay, 10% sand) consistently maintained greater biomass than plants from
 the cooler, sand-dominated site (60% sand, 40% silt + clay). Plants from
 both populations were highly plastic for root length and clonal shoot
 size, with both increasing when planted in clay-dominated compared to
 sand-dominated sediment. Plants from the clay-dominated site grew longer
 rhizomes in foreign sediment while plants from the sand-dominated site had
 no change in this plant trait, indicating some measure of home site
 advantage with respect to sediment conditions. Porewater sulfide also
 exhibited this pattern where concentrations were very low in
 clay-dominated sediment for all plants, but in the sand-dominated
 treatment, only plants native to sand-dominated sediment maintained
 porewater sulfide concentrations below toxic levels. These patterns may be
 mediated by microbiome differences between populations as roots from
 plants native to clay-dominated sediment had more fixed microbiomes
 between treatments compared to plants native to sand-dominated sediment.
 These results support that sediment type partially mediates home site
 advantage in eelgrass populations and suggest differential population
 responses may be mediated by the associated microbiome.
description: For methods on collecting, generating, and processing the data,
 please see [DOI: 10.1007/s12237-025-01549-6]
description: # Plasticity and adaptation of northern California eelgrass in response to
 sediment conditions ## Description of the data and file structure This
 README was written on 9/17/24 by Karolina Zabinski. We explored the
 effects of sediment and population origin on eelgrass performance and the
 root microbiome.  ### Files and variables #### File: GSEData.csv
 **Description:**  ##### Variables * SampleID:  Unique sample ID for each
 plant, first number corresponds to treatment code (1-Millerton Point soil,
 Millerton Point plant; 2- Blake's Landing soil, Blake's Landing
 plant; 3- Blake's Landing soil, Millerton Point plant; 4- Millerton
 Point soil, Blake's Landing plant), second number corresponds to
 which tank the plant was in (1-15).  * PlantOrigin: population eelgrass
 originated from * SedOrigin: location sediment originated from * TankID:
 tank eelgrass was grown in for duration of experiemnt * Dead: Whether the
 plant was dead (1) or alive (0) at the end of the experiment *
 ShootLength_mm: length of the shoot in mm (numeric value, NA if individual
 was not measured) * ShootWidth_mm: width of the shoot measuring the sheath
 in mm (numeric value, NA if individual was not measured) * LeafGrowth1_mm:
 distance in mm between the punched holes in the leaf and the abscission
 line after the end of the growing period on the first rank blade (numeric
 value, NA if blade was not measured) * LeafGrowth2_mm: distance in mm
 between the punched holes in the leaf and the abscission line after the
 end of the growing period on the second rank blade (numeric value, NA if
 blade was not measured) * LeafGrowth3_mm: distance in mm between the
 punched holes in the leaf and the abscission line after the end of the
 growing period on the third rank blade (numeric value, NA if blade was not
 measured) * LeafGrowth4_mm: distance in mm between the punched holes in
 the leaf and the abscission line after the end of the growing period on
 the fourth rank blade (numeric value, NA if blade was not measured) *
 LeafGrowth5_mm: distance in mm between the punched holes in the leaf and
 the abscission line after the end of the growing period on the fifth rank
 blade (numeric value, NA if blade was not measured) * DatePunched: the
 date the growing assay began * DateMeasured: the date the growing assay
 ended * DaysGrowing: the duration of the growing assay * LongestRoot_mm:
 the longest root of the plant in mm (numeric value, NA if individual was
 not measured) * Rhiz_Length_mm: the length of the rhizome in mm (numeric
 value, NA if individual was not measured) * No_RootBundles: the number of
 root bundles on an individual plant (numeric value, NA if individual was
 not measured) * ShootCount: the number of shoots present on an
 individual (numeric value, NA if individual was not measured) *
 Term_FoilPre_g: the mass of the foil packet for the terminal shoot in
 g (numeric value, NA if individual was not measured) * Term_FoilPost_g:
 the mass of the foil packet for the terminal shoot + the terminal shoot in
 g (numeric value, NA if individual was not measured) * Side_FoilPre_g: the
 mass of the foil packet for the side shoots in g (numeric value, NA if
 individual was not measured) * Side_FoilPost_g: the mass of the foil
 packet for the side shoots + the side shoots in g (numeric value, NA if
 individual was not measured) * Rhiz_FoilPre_g: the mass of the foil packet
 for the rhizome in g (numeric value, NA if individual was not measured) *
 Rhiz_FoilPost_g: the mass of the foil packet for the rhizome + the rhizome
 in g (numeric value, NA if individual was not measured) *
 Root_FoilPre_g: the mass of the foil packet for the roots in g (numeric
 value, NA if individual was not measured) * Root_FoilPost_g: the mass of
 the foil packet for the roots + the roots in  (numeric value, NA if
 individual was not measured) * root.hair1.mm: the length of the longest
 root hair in mm (numeric value, NA if individual was not measured) [NOT
 USED IN MANUSCRIPT] * root.hair2.mm: the length of the second longest root
 hair in mm from pic 2 (numeric value, NA if individual was not measured)
 [NOT USED IN MANUSCRIPT] * root.hair3.mm: the length of the third longest
 root hair in mm (numeric value, NA if individual was not measured) [NOT
 USED IN MANUSCRIPT] * root.area.mm2: the area of root hairs in mm^2
 (numeric value, NA if individual was not measured)[NOT USED IN MANUSCRIPT]
 * proportion.root.area.mm: the proportion of the image that is root hairs
 (numeric value, NA if individual was not measured) [NOT USED IN
 MANUSCRIPT] * dimensions.of.image.mm: the dimensions of the image used to
 calculate proportions (numeric value, NA if individual was not measured)
 [NOT USED IN MANUSCRIPT] * area.of.image.mm2: the area of the image used
 to calculate root hair metrics (numeric value, NA if individual was not
 measured) [NOT USED IN MANUSCRIPT] * root.hair.surface.area.mm2: the area
 of root hairs present in image (numeric value, NA if individual was not
 measured) [NOT USED IN MANUSCRIPT] * propotion.root.hair.area.mm: the
 proportion of root hairs present in an image (numeric value, NA if
 individual was not measured) [NOT USED IN MANUSCRIPT] * sulfide.um: the
 concentration of sulfide in collected porewater in um (numeric value, NA
 if individual was not measured) #### File: Temp\_Tank9.csv
 **Description:**  ##### Variables * \#: a list of row names  * Date Time:
 date and time water temperature was taken by logger (MM/DD/YYYY HH:MM:SS)
 * GMT-07:00: date and time temperature was taken * Temp, °C (LGR S/N:
 10355106, SEN S/N: 10355106): temperature of water in ˚C; format of
 column: Temperature taken in ˚C: Serial number of logger: Serial number of
 sensor #### File: Temp\_Tank8.csv **Description:**  ##### Variables * \#:
 a list of row names  * Date Time: date and time water temperature was
 taken by logger (MM/DD/YYYY HH:MM:SS) * GMT-07:00: date and time
 temperature was taken * Temp, °C (LGR S/N: 10649822, SEN S/N: 10649822,
 LBL: Temp): temperature of water in ˚C; format of column: Temperature
 taken in ˚C: Serial number of logger: Serial number of sensor: Label of
 sensor set to temperature ## Code/software Programs/software needed: *
 Microsoft Excel ## Access information Other publicly accessible locations
 of the data: * For scripts, please see publication [Publication DOI] for
 GitHub access link * For microbiome FASTQ files, please see publicaiton
 [Publication DOI] for NCBI Accession Number