Hydrologically contrasting environments induce genetic but not phenotypic differentiation in Solanum dulcamara

In contrasting habitats, locally adapted populations are expected to evolve through directional selection. Hydrological gradients provide a scenario where strong selection forces have led to species segregation in communities along the hydrological niche axes due to specific adaptations to their ambient environment. However, much less is known about the processes enabling species with wide ecological amplitudes, such as Solanum dulcamara L., to occupy the contrasting niches at the far ends of the gradient. Here, we investigate the question whether local adaptation is indeed the driving mechanism enabling this species to inhabit contrasting wet and dry habitats.
Using molecular analyses and performing a common garden experiment, we examined whether genetic and phenotypic differentiation had occurred between populations originating from flooding- and drought-prone habitat pairs from nine different locations. We also tested whether plants were better adapted to their home site stress.
We...