Genetics of adaptive evolution in Mimulus (monkeyflower)

In the central Sierra Nevada mountains of California, M. lewisii is found primarily at high elevation, while M. cardinalis is found primarily at low elevation.  At middle elevations, about 1400m, the two species are sympatric.  In collaboration with Doug Schemske and Amy Angert, recombinant inbred lines (RILs) of a lewisii-cardinalis hybrid are being produced to map QTLs controlling adaptation to abiotic factors (e.g., temperature, length of growing season) that vary across an elevational transect.  We have established common garden experiments with thousands of Mimulus plants at low, middle, and high elevation transplant sites.  This work is a modern rendition of the classical experiments in ecological genetics performed in the first half of the 20th Century by Clausen, Keck, and Hiesey and Hiesey, Nobs, and Bjorkman at the Carnegie Institution Department of Plant Biology at Stanford University.

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Last revised: 8-May-2003