Small effective size limits performance in a novel environment.

ABSTRACT: Understanding what limits or facilitates species' responses to human-induced habitat change can provide insight for the control of invasive species and the conservation of small populations, as well as an arena for studying adaptation to realistic novel environments. Small effective size of ancestral populations could limit the establishment in, or response to, a novel or altered habitat because of low genetic variation for ecologically important traits, and/or because small populations harbor fixed deleterious mutations. I estimated the fitness of individuals from populations of the endangered plant Hypericum cumulicola, of known census and effective size, transplanted into native scrub habitat and unpaved roadsides, which are a novel habitat for this species. I found a significant

SUBMITTER: Oakley CG 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5779127 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature