Directional and stabilizing selection shaped morphological, reproductive, and physiological traits of the invader Solidago canadensis

Trait evolution in invasive plant species is important because it can impact demographic parameters key to invasion success. Invasive plant species often show phenotypic clines along geographic and climatic gradients. However, the relative contributions of natural selection and neutral evolutionary processes to phenotypic trait variation among populations of invasive plants remains unclear. A common method to assess whether a trait has been shaped by natural selection or neutral evolutionary processes is to compare the geographical pattern for the trait of interest to the divergence in neutral genetic loci (i.e., QST-FST comparisons). A redundancy analysis (RDA) can facilitate identification of putative agents of natural selection on the trait. Here, we employed both a QST-FST comparisons approach and RDA to infer whether natural selection shaped traits of invasive populations of S. canadensis in China and identify the potential environmental drivers of natural selection. We addressed t..., Common garden experiment
In April 2013, we established a common-garden experiment on Linhai campus of Taizhou University (121˚17´E, 28˚87´N) to assess quantitative trait variation among S. canadensis individuals from the 14 populations. We obtained three similar-sized (ca. 15 cm) plantlets for each of the 12 families in the 14 populations from the pre-experiment cultivation of plants described above. The plantlets were grown in a common garden in the field in three blocks. Thus, the total number of experimental plants was 504: 14 populations × 12 individuals (representing 12 maternal families) per population × 3 blocks. Within a block, the 12 individuals were planted in 12 separate plots that each measured 1.5 m × 1.5 m. The individual plants were grown 30 cm apart from each other. Throughout, the experimental plants received only rain-fed water and were not fertilized.
Phenotypic trait measurement in the common garden
One month after transplant (21st - 27th May 2013), we took in situ ..., Excel, This README file was generated on 2023-08-03 by Junmin Li.

# Title of Dataset

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Directional and stabilizing selection shaped morphological, reproductive, and physiological traits of the invader Solidago canadensis
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## Date of data collection

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Phenotypic tratis were collected on 2014 and 2015. SSR data were collected on 2013.
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### Links to publications that cite or use the data

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Du LS, Oduor AMO, Zuo W, Liu HY, Li JM. Directional and stabilizing selection shaped morphological, reproductive, and physiological traits of the invader Solidago canadensis. Ecology and Evolution, 2023.
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#### File interview

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This dataset include five worksheets. The first two sheets were the phenotypic traits in the common garden collected in Year 1. The third and fourth sheets were the phenotypic traits in the common garden collected in Year 2. The fifth sheet is the SSR data.
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#### Description of the data

1. The first sheet.
Number of variables: 25
Number of cases...