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Synthetic experimental populations of Arabidopsis thaliana with differing genetic backgrounds planted in a 14-level precipitation alteration common garden.

Preprint: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

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Laura Leventhal @lauracleventhal.bsky.social · 20d

In A. thaliana and other plant systems, local adaptation is stronger closer to the equatorial edge and load is highest farther from the equator, which highlights a critical vulnerability: under strong selection, these high mutation load and low local adaptation populations may be the most at risk.

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Laura Leventhal @lauracleventhal.bsky.social · 20d

We monitored these populations for 3 years, and found that population growth rate decreased as the treatments became more stressful. Further, "high risk" populations (either high load or low local adaptation scores) had a higher stochasticity for recovery after a single year of water stress.

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Laura Leventhal @lauracleventhal.bsky.social · 20d

Crucially, we found a significant interaction between load and local adaptation, which grew stronger as the environment became more stressful. This suggests a synergistic decay of fitness resulting from locally adaptive variants, globally maladaptive load, and high water stress environments.

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Laura Leventhal @lauracleventhal.bsky.social · 20d

We found that populations with a low number of local adaptation alleles or high mutation load had decreased fitness in our highest drought stress environments.

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Laura Leventhal @lauracleventhal.bsky.social · 20d

By using data from other A. thaliana common gardens and genomic prediction tools, we created synthetic experimental populations of A. thaliana that varied in their abundance of locally adaptive alleles and also in their mutational load.

1 1 3

Laura Leventhal @lauracleventhal.bsky.social · 20d

Synthetic experimental populations of Arabidopsis thaliana with differing genetic backgrounds planted in a 14-level precipitation alteration common garden.

Preprint: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

🧵👇

3 2 11

Laura Leventhal @lauracleventhal.bsky.social · 20d

Crucially, we found a significant interaction between load and local adaptation, which grew stronger as the environment became more stressful. This suggests a synergistic decay of fitness resulting from locally adaptive variants, globally maladaptive load, and high water stress environments.

Laura Leventhal @lauracleventhal.bsky.social · 20d

We found that populations with a low number of local adaptation alleles or high mutation load had decreased fitness in our highest drought stress environments.

1

Laura Leventhal @lauracleventhal.bsky.social · 20d

By using data from other A. thaliana common gardens and genomic prediction tools, we created synthetic experimental populations of A. thaliana that varied in their abundance of locally adaptive alleles and also in their mutational load.

1

Reposted by Laura Leventhal

Moi Expósito-Alonso (MOILAB) @mexpositoalonso.bsky.social · 29d

We are searching for a technician in Next Generation Sequencing!

Come to our lab University of California, Berkeley Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI)

See ad:

careerspub.universityofcalifornia.edu/psp/ucb/EMPL...

An error has occurred.

careerspub.universityofcalifornia.edu

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Reposted by Laura Leventhal

Moi Expósito-Alonso (MOILAB) @mexpositoalonso.bsky.social · 29d

Apply for our PhD program on Evolution Ecology Organismal Biology (Integrative! Biology)

Dec 1 2025 deadline

Check out the Flyer below for more information on our #MOILAB!

Link to Flyer
docs.google.com/document/d/1...

@ucberkeleyofficial.bsky.social
@hhmi.org

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Laura Leventhal @lauracleventhal.bsky.social · Oct 6

congratulations! can't wait to read it!

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Reposted by Laura Leventhal

Julia Kreiner @jmkreiner.bsky.social · Oct 6

Human-mediated land-use and climate change occur simultaneously, but how do they interact to shape adaptive dynamics? Super excited to share the first paper from the Kreiner lab, led by postdoc extraordinaire @rpineau.bsky.social

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Reposted by Laura Leventhal

Magdalena Bohutínská @majdabohu.bsky.social · Jul 17

1/5 ✨Proud✨ to see our review with Katie Peichel as featured content in Trends_Ecol_Evo, with my beloved alpine lineages of Arabidopsis arenosa on the cover. Hope that you find it interesting! doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2023.11.007

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Reposted by Laura Leventhal

Moi Expósito-Alonso (MOILAB) @mexpositoalonso.bsky.social · May 30

Super excited to release a huge evolution project on the works for many years:

Evolution experiments synchronized across climates to understand rapid adaptation

Preprint: doi.org/10.1101/2025...
All data available: www.grene-net.org/data

#MOILAB
@ucberkeleyofficial.bsky.social
@hhmi.org

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Laura Leventhal @lauracleventhal.bsky.social · May 30

An update: fully cracked, over easy.

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Reposted by Laura Leventhal

Botanical Society of America @botsocamerica.bsky.social · May 19

Undescribed species diversity in Brewer's #jewelflower illuminates potential mechanisms of diversification associated with serpentine endemism

New #AJB research by Kyle Christie, N. Ivalú Cacho, Jacob Macdonald et al.

doi.org/10.1002/ajb2... #botany #plantscience #biodiversity #Brassicaceae

Brewer's jewelflower (Streptanthus breweri) growing on barren serpentine soil in Lake County, California, USA.

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Reposted by Laura Leventhal

FrontRangeWildflowers @frwildflowers.bsky.social · May 19

Today is the last day to oppose the gutting of the Endangered Species Act, I just did and it’s not hard:

Rescinding the Definition of
"Harm" Under the
Endangered Species Act

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Laura Leventhal @lauracleventhal.bsky.social · May 15

A fried egg poppy in that “just cracked” stage 🥚

(Matilija poppy or Romneya coulteri)

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Laura Leventhal @lauracleventhal.bsky.social · Apr 23

A special find was this chaparral clarkia, Clarkia affinis, which I only found one of and it was growing proudly on this large rock.

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