Data from: Evolution of competitive ability and the response to nutrient availability: A resurrection study with the calcareous grassland herb, Leontodon hispidus

Rapid environmental changes across Europe include warmer and increasingly
variable temperatures, changes in soil nutrient availability, and
pollinator decline. These abiotic and biotic changes can affect natural
plant populations and force them to optimize resource use against
competitors. To date, the evolution of competitive ability in the context
of changes in nutrient availability remains understudied. In this study,
we investigated whether the common calcareous grassland herb Leontodon
hispidus recently evolved its competitive ability and response to nutrient
availability. We compared ancestors sampled in 1995 and descendants
sampled in 2018 and applied a competition treatment in
combination with weekly nutrient treatments (no fertilizer, nitrogen,
phosphorus, and both). We found evidence for evolution of
increased competitive ability, with descendants producing more
vegetative biomass than ancestors when grown under competition.
The competitive ability also depended on the nutrient treatment,
indicating that descendants might be adapted to lower
nitrogen concentrations, which could be linked to the decreasing
nitrogen emissions into the atmosphere since the 1990s. Our study
demonstrates rapid contemporary evolution of competitive ability,
but also the complexity of the underlying processes
of contemporary evolution, and sheds light on the importance of
understudied potential selection agents such as nutrient
availability.