Rapid adaptation across climates in synchronized outdoor evolution experiments of Arabidopsis thaliana

The growing threat that climate change poses to biodiversity has put a spotlight on rapid evolutionary processes that could aid population rescue over short ecological timescales. Although there is increasing evidence for rapid evolution in response to changing environments, there is a need for large scale, replicated evolution experiments tracking genomic changes over years across different environments. We conducted a globally synchronized and replicated evolution experiment with the plant Arabidopsis thaliana for 5 years in over 30 outdoor experimental gardens with distinct climates across Europe, the Levant, and North America, and performed whole-genome sequencing on over 70,000 surviving reproductive individuals. We observed rapid and repeatable adaptation among replicates in the same climate and divergence across climates, with some allele frequency shifts best explained by large natural selection coefficients between -0.46 to 0.60 acting in opposite directions across environments. Scanning the genome for rapid climate adaptation, we identified known and novel standing adaptive genetic variants that may contribute to important ecological phenotypes including germination and flowering timing, and stress responses. Cross validated models showed that evolutionary adaptation trends as well as population survival after three generations in new environments were predictable from other environments, but not always, showcasing the potential and challenges of using genomics and evolutionary biology to help anticipate the fate of wild species in future changing climates.