A synthesis of common garden studies testing for local adaptation to climate

Reciprocal common garden designs in ecology and evolution are a tool used to examine environmental effects on species sometimes facilitating assessment of adaptation within species to local context by growing individuals from different places in shared conditions. The purpose of this synthesis was to examine the frequency and strength of evidence associated with climate adaptation tested using reciprocal common garden experiments. The capacity of common gardens as an experimental tool to identify ecotypes was explored by reviewing all studies that used the terms common garden and ecotype or climate and reciprocal. The searches were restrained to ensure that studies either used a. different conditions within a single common garden, or b. reciprocal or multiple common gardens. <br>The Web of Science was queried July 2020. The review process returned a total of 229 studies listing these key terms, and after detailed, full-text review produced 48 relevant studies. Data were extracted for 60 independent trials from these studies for different species and environmental combinations.