ONGOING ADAPTATION TO MEDITERRANEAN CLIMATE EXTREMES IN A CHEMICALLY POLYMORPHIC PLANT

Abstract

Although extreme climatic events may have profound effects on ecological systems, there is a marked lack of information on adaptation to such events. In this study, we employed reciprocal transplantation on both a geographic scale (experimental sites 200 km apart in different parts of the range of the study species) and a local landscape scale (reciprocal populations separated by 2–8 km) to study the performance of different chemical forms of Thymus vulgaris which naturally occur in different climatic environments. Survival and growth were analyzed in relation to long‐term and contemporary climate data in natural populations and our experimental sites. The reciprocal transplants involved a period of six years for clones transplanted in experimental field sites on a geographic scale and three years for seedlings transplanted among natural populations at the local landscape level. Cloned transplants on a geographic scale produced evidence for local adaptation to either summer drought, primarily following the extreme summer drought of 2003, or severe early‐winter freezing. Chemotypes that show high survival after intense summer drought showed poor survival after intense early‐winter freezing and vice versa, results which directly accord with climate data for their original sites. On the local landscape scale, we found further evidence for local adaptation to summer drought but not to winter freezing (probably due to the absence of extreme freezing during the three years of this study). Future modifications to the occurrence and frequency of extreme climate events may have a profound influence on the spatial distribution of thyme chemotypes.