Spatio-temporal dynamics of genetic variation at the quantitative and molecular levels within a natural Arabidopsis thaliana population

Evolutionary change begins at the population scale. Therefore, understanding adaptive variation requires the identification of the factors maintaining and shaping standing genetic variation at the within-population level. Spatial and temporal environmental heterogeneity represent ecological drivers of within-population genetic variation, determining the evolutionary trajectory of populations along with random processes. Here, we focused on the effects of spatio-temporal heterogeneity on quantitative and molecular variation in a natural population of the annual plant Arabidopsis thaliana.
We sampled 1,093 individuals from a Spanish A. thaliana population across an area of 7.4 ha for 10 years (2012-2021). Based on a sample of 279 maternal lines, we estimated spatio-temporal variation in life-history traits and fitness from a common garden experiment. We genotyped 884 individuals with nuclear microsatellites to estimate spatio-temporal variation in genetic diversity. We assessed spatial pa...