Anne Duputié

Current research on adaptation to climatic change has shown that some species can adapt to climatic change, either through increased dispersal and colonization of polewards habitats (e.g. Hill 2010), or modification of their quantitative traits through phenotypic plasticity (Berteaux et al. 2004; Charmantier et al. 2008) and/or genetic adaptation (Bradshaw & Holzapfel 2001; Umina et al. 2005). While genetic changes are well-considered in theoretical models of species’ distribution evolution, changes in dispersal abilities or phenotypic plasticity are usually not considered. These are taken into account by process-based models (and to a lesser extent, by correlative models), which however generally do not consider genetic evolution.

The aim of this project was to improve the realism of a process-based model of tree species distributions, PHENOFIT (Chuine & Beaubien 2001; Morin & Chuine 2005), through taking into account the joint genetic evolution of several traits related to phenology (i.e. to the timing of biologically relevant events). To do this, it was first necessary to improve our theoretical understanding of joint trait evolution in a spatially heterogeneous landscape.

The next step is now to understand selective pressures acting on phenological traits, and understand their genetic architecture in a model tree species, in order to assess the contribution of microevolution of these plastic traits to the species' persistance.