Data from: Evolutionary potential of a widespread clonal grass under changing climate

Adaptive responses are probably the most effective long-term responses of
populations to climate change, but they require sufficient evolutionary
potential upon which selection can act. This requires high genetic
variance for the traits under selection, and low antagonizing genetic
covariances between the different traits. Evolutionary potential estimates
are still scarce for long-lived, clonal plants, although these species are
predicted to dominate the landscape with climate change. We studied the
evolutionary potential of a perennial grass, Festuca rubra, in western
Norway, in two controlled environments corresponding to extreme
environments in natural populations: cold-dry and warm-wet, the latter
being consistent with the climatic predictions for the country. We
estimated genetic variances, covariances, selection gradients and response
to selection for a wide range of growth, resource acquisition and
physiological traits, and compared their estimates between the
environments. We showed that the evolutionary potential of F. rubra is
high in both environments, and genetic covariances define one main
direction along which selection can act with relatively few constraints to
selection. The observed response to selection at present is not sufficient
to produce genotypes adapted to the predicted climate change under a
simple, space for time substitution model. However, the current
populations contain genotypes which are pre-adapted to the new climate,
especially for growth and resource acquisition traits. Overall, these
results suggest that the present populations of the long-lived clonal
plant may have sufficient evolutionary potential to withstand long-term
climate changes through adaptive responses. We studied the evolutionary
potential of a perennial grass, Festuca rubra, in western Norway, in two
controlled environments corresponding to extreme environments in natural
populations: cold-dry and warm-wet, the latter being consistent with the
climatic predictions for the country. We estimated genetic variances,
covariances, selection gradients and response to selection for a wide
range of growth, resource acquisition and physiological traits, and
compared their estimates between the environments. We showed that the
evolutionary potential of F. rubra is high in both environments, and
genetic covariances define one main direction along which selection can
act with relatively few constraints to selection. The observed response to
selection at present is not sufficient to produce genotypes adapted to the
predicted climate change under a simple, space for time substitution
model. However, the current populations contain genotypes which are
pre-adapted to the new climate, especially for growth and resource
acquisition traits. Overall, these results suggest that the present
populations of the long-lived clonal plant may have sufficient
evolutionary potential to withstand long-term climate changes through
adaptive responses.