Shifting precipitation regimes influence optimal germination strategies and population dynamics in bet-hedging desert annuals

This submission contains all that is necessary to generate Figures 1-6 and Appendices A-D of the paper entitled \"Shifting Precipitation Regimes Influence Optimal Germination Strategies and Population Dynamics in Bet-hedging Desert Annuals\". A readme.txt file is incorporated and describes all csv and R-script files. It also includes a roadmap for running the scripts on one's own if one wants to re-generate their own data files. However, data files have been included so that one can instantly generate the figures., The data collection was supported by NSF: DEB-9107324, DEB-9419905 (LTREB), DEB-0212782 (LTREB), DEB-0717466 (LTREB), DEB-0817121 (LTREB), DEB-1256792 (LTREB) and DEB- 0844780. See the paper entitled \"Shifting Precipitation Regimes Influence Optimal Germination Strategies and Population Dynamics in Bet-hedging Desert Annuals\" for more details. See also Gremer, Jennifer R., and D. Lawrence Venable. \"Bet hedging in desert winter annual plants: optimal germination strategies in a variable environment.\" Ecology letters 17.3 (2014): 380-387; Venable, D. Lawrence. \"Bet hedging in a guild of desert annuals.\" Ecology 88.5 (2007): 1086-1090.; see also the website for the LTREB Data Sets for desert annual field data: http://www.eebweb.arizona.edu/faculty/venable/LTREB/LTREB%20data.htm., Any text editor will open the readme.txt file. All other scripts should be visible with any typical editor; scripts may be more readable in Rstudio. , # Data from: Shifting precipitation regimes influence optimal germination strategies and population dynamics in bet-hedging desert annuals

Climate change will affect both the mean and variability in environmental conditions and may have major, negative impacts on population densities in the future. For annual plants that already live in an extreme environment like the Sonoran Desert, keeping a fraction of their seeds dormant underground (for possibly years at a time) is critical to survive. Here, we consider how this form of bet-hedging (i.e., delayed germination) for ten Sonoran Desert annuals mediates responses to precipitation shifts. We use a demographic model parameterized with long-term field and precipitation data to explore how forecasted changes in precipitation impact annual plant species’ population densities. We then examine how instantaneous adaptation to optimal germination fractions in the shifted precipitation regimes bolsters population densities. Our results indicate...