Data from: Adaptation to elevated CO2 in different biodiversity contexts

AbstractIn the absence of migration, species persistence depends on adaption to a changing environment, but whether and how adaptation to global change is altered by community diversity is not understood. Community diversity may prevent, enhance or alter how species adapt to changing conditions by influencing population sizes, genetic diversity and/or the fitness landscape experienced by focal species. We tested the impact of community diversity on adaptation by performing a reciprocal transplant experiment on grasses that evolved for 14 years under ambient and elevated CO2, in communities of low or high species-richness. Using biomass as a fitness proxy, we find evidence for local adaptation to elevated CO2, but only for plants assayed in a community of similar diversity to the one experienced during the period of selection. Our results indicate that the biological community shapes the very nature of the fitness landscape within which species evolve in response to elevated CO2., Usage notesSurvival, Inflorescence production and Biomass Data for Kleynhans et. al.This data was collected through a reciprocal transplant experiment conducted on Poa pratensis (Kentucky bluegrass) plants that were selected in communities of low and high species richness in ambient and elevated CO2 concentrations for 14 years. Following selection, seeds were collected from each of these treatments propagated in common garden conditions and then transplanted back into each of these treatments The experiment was conducted in BioCON at the Cedar Creek Ecosystem Science Reserve in Minnesota in 2012 and 2013. This data file contains survival, inflorescence production, aboveground, belowground and total biomass data for the transplanted Poa pratensis plants that survived for longer than the first month of the experiment and were not burned in a run away fire.Kleynhans.et.al_data.csvKleynhans et al_README.txt