Biology ETDs

Publication Date

Summer 7-29-2025

Abstract

Plant persistence is being challenged by anthropogenic climate change and anthropogenic disturbance. Under these shifting environmental conditions plants may persist through plastic or evolutionary rescue, were adaptations via changes in trait expression or evolutionary change occurs. My dissertation examines these mechanisms through a large-scale greenhouse experiment that manipulates single seed descent lines that differ in their colonization histories, contextualizes the fitness outcomes of phenotypic plasticity, and I leverage a long-term ecological study to identify genetic outcomes of symbiosis. I identified that phenotypic plasticity does not differ by colonization history, is fitness neutral, and does not exhibit any costs to plant fitness. We elucidated that hosts maintain more genetic diversity when symbionts are present due to differences in recruitment and survivorship.

Keywords

phenotypic plasticity, plant persistence, evolutionary ecology, symbiosis, colonization, Arabidopsis thaliana

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Biology

Level of Degree

Doctoral

Department Name

UNM Biology Department

First Committee Member (Chair)

Kenneth Whitney

Second Committee Member

Ellen Martinson

Third Committee Member

Joann Mudge

Fourth Committee Member

Emily Josephs

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Available for download on Thursday, July 29, 2027

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