Phenotypic and transgenerational plasticity promote local adaptation to sun and shade environments

Abstract

Adaptive plasticity is expected to be important when the grain of environmental variation is encompassed in offspring dispersal distance. We investigated patterns of local adaptation, selection and plasticity in an association of plant morphology with fine-scale habitat shifts from oak canopy understory to adjacent grassland habitat in Claytonia perfoliata. Populations from beneath the canopy of oak trees were >90 % broad leaved and large seeded, while plants from adjacent grassland habitat were >90 % linear-leaved and small seeded. In a 2-year study, we used reciprocal transplants and phenotypic selection analysis to investigate local adaptation, selection, plasticity and maternal effects in this trait-environment association. Transgenerational effects were studied by planting offspring of inbred maternal families grown in both environments across the same environments in the second year. Reciprocal transplants revealed local adaptation to habitat type: broad-leaved forms had higher fitness in oak understory and linear-leaved plants had higher fitness in open grassland habitat. Phenotypic selection analyses indicated selection for narrower leaves and lower SLA in open habitat, and selection for broad leaves and intermediate values of SLA in understory. Both plant morphs exhibited plastic responses in traits in the same direction as selection on traits (narrower leaves and lower SLA in open habitat) suggesting that plasticity is adaptive. We detected an adaptive transgenerational effect in which maternal environment influenced offspring fitness; offspring of grassland-reared plants had higher fitness than understory-reared plants when grown in grassland. We did not detect costs of plasticity, but did find a positive association between leaf shape plasticity and fitness in linear-leaved plants in grassland habitat. Together, these findings indicate that fixed differences in trait values corresponding to selection across habitat contribute to local adaptation, but that plasticity and maternal environmental effects may be favored through promotion of survival across heterogeneous environments.