DISSERTATION RESEARCH: Biotic interactions and the geographic range limit of Clarkia xantiana across a complex environmental gradient

It is a longstanding question why some species are found across vast portions of the earth (e.g., dandelions), and some species only occur in small patches of habitat. Similarly, the fact that some species are expanding their ranges rapidly (e.g., invasive species) while many are not remains difficult to explain. Figuring out what enables, or prevents, plants from growing in certain areas has far reaching consequences for management of invasive species, continued productivity of crops in variable environments, and protection of threatened organisms. This project uses a Californian plant species, (Clarkia xantiana), restricted to a small area of Southern California to explore the environmental factors limiting species distributions. Studies often only consider climatic factors, such as temperature and precipitation, as drivers of these distributions. But researchers are increasingly realizing the role microorganisms play in affecting plant growth and distribution. This project will characterize soil microbial communities within and outside C. xantiana's native range, and use a novel field experiment to test how microbes and rainfall may interact to limit C. xantiana's range. The researchers will also conduct a series of educational field trips with a local middle school to teach students about hypothesis testing, scientific experiments, and the natural history of Southern California.

This project uses next generation sequencing and a manipulative field experiment to explore interactions between soil microbial communities, precipitation, and plant traits, and how these factors influence the geographic distribution of Clarkia xantiana ssp. xantiana in the foothills of the Southern Sierra Nevada. Multivariate statistical analyses will be used to examine patterns of community shifts across geographic space, focusing on those microbial taxa differentiating sites within and outside C. xantiana's distributional limit. An in situ soil microbial transplant experiment, paired with a rainfall manipulation treatment, will quantify the main and interactive effects of these factors on fitness outside the range. PVC growth cores installed in the ground at sites outside the range edge will be used to manipulate local soil microbial environments surrounding individual xantiana plants via inoculation with microbial communities from inside the range. This is paired with a rainfall manipulation treatment in a split-plot design, where half of the plots will receive 50% rainfall addition. The effects of site, rainfall treatment, inoculum, and all two-way interactions on components of lifetime fitness and phenology will be analyzed using ANOVA.