Skip to main content
Dryad

Data from: Variation among populations of Quercus macrocarpa in a reciprocal transplant experiment across a latitudinal gradient

Rea, Lucy1; Ostrowsky, Laura2; Mohn, Rebekah3; Garner, Mira4; Worcester, Lindsey3; Lapadat, Cathleen1; McCarthy, Heather5; Hipp, Andrew3; Cavender Bares, Jeannine2

Published Jul 11, 2026 on Dryad. https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.2z34tmpvk

Data files

Jul 11, 2026 version files 731.41 KB

Click names to download individual files

Abstract

Ongoing climate change will impact tree populations unless they are able to acclimate to the changes in their local environment. Effective planning for managing climate adaptation requires an understanding of the current state of local adaptation and physiological performance to assess whether populations are at risk of local extinction and determine if assisted migration is appropriate and to select seed sources populations. Here, we used a reciprocal transplant experiment across a latitudinal gradient in North America to examine the impacts of warming on three bur oak (Quercus macrocarpa) populations across their current range. We aimed to 1) assess local adaptation in each of the populations using survival and size as fitness metrics, and 2) evaluate differences in physiological responses to different environments along the latitudinal gradient. We found that northern populations are maladapted to hotter climates as evidenced by their low survival, growth, and photosynthetic rates in the warmest common garden. The southernmost population had the highest survival rate, growth rate, and fitness of the three populations in the southernmost garden, providing evidence for local adaptation to the warmest garden. However, we found that conditions in our middle garden led to all populations having the highest fitness and best physiological performance in that garden. Growth and survival were correlated in the middle garden, but were decoupled in the northernmost and southernmost gardens, likely due to stress associated with the climate in the gardens at either end of the gradient that led to greater allocation to survival than growth. Our results suggest that southern seed sources may be well adapted to warmer conditions in the north brought on by climate change, which may have important implications for managers assisting broadly ranged tree species in adapting to climate change.