ddRAD sequence reads: Rapid evolution of multiple European plant species based on seed bank and current seed

Ongoing global warming and increased drought frequencies have a large impact on plant populations and potentially drive evolutionary changes. Historical comparisons, where plants grown from seeds collected in the past (“ancestors”) are compared to plants grown from freshly collected seeds from the same populations (“descendants”), are a suitable method to investigate such evolutionary changes across many taxa. When applied to multiple species simultaneously, historical comparisons can reveal recent parallel evolutionary shifts. We used 21-38 year old seeds and seeds newly collected at the same source site, of 24 European plant species (Ammophila arenaria, Anthemis maritima, Anthyllis barba-jovis, Calystegia soldanella, Centaurium erythraea, Clinopodium vulgare, Dianthus carthusianorum, Digitalis lutea, Digitalis lutea, Digitalis purpurea, Elytrigia juncea, Globularia bisnagarica, Hypericum montanum, Leontodon hispidus, Matthiola tricuspidata, Medicago marina, Melica ciliata, Pimpinella saxifraga, Plantago crassifolia, Plantago subulata, Sanguisorba minor, Sedum album, Silene chlorantha, Teucrium chamaedrys, Verbascum densiflorum). We performed various common-garden greenhouse experiments to investigate evolution of functional traits, e.g. flowering phenology, possibly in response to increased drought over the last decades. We used ddRAD sequencing (enzymes EcoRI and MspI) for SNP genotyping to quantify genetic variation within and between ancestral and descendant populations and to assess their relatedness to characterize sampling designs.