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Expansion history and environmental suitability shape effective population size in a plant invasion
- Source :
- Mol Ecol
- Publication Year :
- 2019
-
Abstract
- The margins of an expanding range are predicted to be challenging environments for adaptation. Marginal populations should often experience low effective population sizes (Ne) where genetic drift is high due to demographic expansion and/or census population size is low due to unfavorable environmental conditions. Nevertheless, invasive species demonstrate increasing evidence of rapid evolution and potential adaptation to novel environments encountered during colonization, calling into question whether significant reductions in Ne are realized during range expansions in nature. Here we report one of the first empirical tests of the joint effects of expansion dynamics and environment on effective population size variation during invasive range expansion. We estimate contemporary values of Ne using rates of linkage disequilibrium among genome-wide markers within introduced populations of the highly invasive plant Centaurea solstitialis (yellow starthistle) in North America (California, USA), as well as in native European populations. As predicted, we find that Ne within the invasion is positively correlated with both expansion history (time since founding) and habitat quality (abiotic climate). History and environment had independent additive effects with similar effect sizes, supporting an important role of both factors in this invasion. These results support theoretical expectations for the population genetics of range expansion, though whether these processes can ultimately arrest the spread of an invasive species remains an open question.
- Subjects :
- 0301 basic medicine
0106 biological sciences
Range (biology)
Climate
Population genetics
Centaurea
Environment
010603 evolutionary biology
01 natural sciences
Invasive species
Article
Linkage Disequilibrium
Centaurea solstitialis
03 medical and health sciences
Genetic drift
Effective population size
Genetics
Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
Ecosystem
Population Density
biology
Ecology
010604 marine biology & hydrobiology
Population size
15. Life on land
Ecological genetics
biology.organism_classification
Adaptation, Physiological
030104 developmental biology
Genetics, Population
Habitat
Introduced Species
Genome, Plant
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Mol Ecol
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....aa09bb95cbad2724cb5a06964546b731