Plasticity and adaptation of northern California eelgrass in response to sediment conditions
Data files
May 30, 2025 version files 408.66 KB
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GSEData.csv
11.76 KB
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README.md
6.46 KB
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Temp_Tank8.csv
228.42 KB
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Temp_Tank9.csv
162.02 KB
Abstract
Considerable research describes the interactions between seagrasses and their sedimentary environment, but there is little information on how populations differ in their innate versus plastic responses to these differences. Here, we test whether sediment contributes to eelgrass population differentiation and the nature of plastic responses to different sediment environments. We do this via a 15-week, fully crossed common garden experiment with two populations and their native sediment types. Plants from the warmer-temperature, clay-dominated site (90% silt + clay, 10% sand) consistently maintained greater biomass than plants from the cooler, sand-dominated site (60% sand, 40% silt + clay). Plants from both populations were highly plastic for root length and clonal shoot size, with both increasing when planted in clay-dominated compared to sand-dominated sediment. Plants from the clay-dominated site grew longer rhizomes in foreign sediment while plants from the sand-dominated site had no change in this plant trait, indicating some measure of home site advantage with respect to sediment conditions. Porewater sulfide also exhibited this pattern where concentrations were very low in clay-dominated sediment for all plants, but in the sand-dominated treatment, only plants native to sand-dominated sediment maintained porewater sulfide concentrations below toxic levels. These patterns may be mediated by microbiome differences between populations as roots from plants native to clay-dominated sediment had more fixed microbiomes between treatments compared to plants native to sand-dominated sediment. These results support that sediment type partially mediates home site advantage in eelgrass populations and suggest differential population responses may be mediated by the associated microbiome.
Description of the data and file structure
This README was written on 9/17/24 by Karolina Zabinski.
We explored the effects of sediment and population origin on eelgrass performance and the root microbiome.
Files and variables
File: GSEData.csv
Description:
Variables
- SampleID: Unique sample ID for each plant, first number corresponds to treatment code (1-Millerton Point soil, Millerton Point plant; 2- Blake’s Landing soil, Blake’s Landing plant; 3- Blake’s Landing soil, Millerton Point plant; 4- Millerton Point soil, Blake’s Landing plant), second number corresponds to which tank the plant was in (1-15).
- PlantOrigin: population eelgrass originated from
- SedOrigin: location sediment originated from
- TankID: tank eelgrass was grown in for duration of experiemnt
- Dead: Whether the plant was dead (1) or alive (0) at the end of the experiment
- ShootLength_mm: length of the shoot in mm (numeric value, NA if individual was not measured)
- ShootWidth_mm: width of the shoot measuring the sheath in mm (numeric value, NA if individual was not measured)
- LeafGrowth1_mm: distance in mm between the punched holes in the leaf and the abscission line after the end of the growing period on the first rank blade (numeric value, NA if blade was not measured)
- LeafGrowth2_mm: distance in mm between the punched holes in the leaf and the abscission line after the end of the growing period on the second rank blade (numeric value, NA if blade was not measured)
- LeafGrowth3_mm: distance in mm between the punched holes in the leaf and the abscission line after the end of the growing period on the third rank blade (numeric value, NA if blade was not measured)
- LeafGrowth4_mm: distance in mm between the punched holes in the leaf and the abscission line after the end of the growing period on the fourth rank blade (numeric value, NA if blade was not measured)
- LeafGrowth5_mm: distance in mm between the punched holes in the leaf and the abscission line after the end of the growing period on the fifth rank blade (numeric value, NA if blade was not measured)
- DatePunched: the date the growing assay began
- DateMeasured: the date the growing assay ended
- DaysGrowing: the duration of the growing assay
- LongestRoot_mm: the longest root of the plant in mm (numeric value, NA if individual was not measured)
- Rhiz_Length_mm: the length of the rhizome in mm (numeric value, NA if individual was not measured)
- No_RootBundles: the number of root bundles on an individual plant (numeric value, NA if individual was not measured)
- ShootCount: the number of shoots present on an individual (numeric value, NA if individual was not measured)
- Term_FoilPre_g: the mass of the foil packet for the terminal shoot in g (numeric value, NA if individual was not measured)
- Term_FoilPost_g: the mass of the foil packet for the terminal shoot + the terminal shoot in g (numeric value, NA if individual was not measured)
- Side_FoilPre_g: the mass of the foil packet for the side shoots in g (numeric value, NA if individual was not measured)
- Side_FoilPost_g: the mass of the foil packet for the side shoots + the side shoots in g (numeric value, NA if individual was not measured)
- Rhiz_FoilPre_g: the mass of the foil packet for the rhizome in g (numeric value, NA if individual was not measured)
- Rhiz_FoilPost_g: the mass of the foil packet for the rhizome + the rhizome in g (numeric value, NA if individual was not measured)
- Root_FoilPre_g: the mass of the foil packet for the roots in g (numeric value, NA if individual was not measured)
- Root_FoilPost_g: the mass of the foil packet for the roots + the roots in (numeric value, NA if individual was not measured)
- root.hair1.mm: the length of the longest root hair in mm (numeric value, NA if individual was not measured) [NOT USED IN MANUSCRIPT]
- root.hair2.mm: the length of the second longest root hair in mm from pic 2 (numeric value, NA if individual was not measured) [NOT USED IN MANUSCRIPT]
- root.hair3.mm: the length of the third longest root hair in mm (numeric value, NA if individual was not measured) [NOT USED IN MANUSCRIPT]
- root.area.mm2: the area of root hairs in mm^2 (numeric value, NA if individual was not measured)[NOT USED IN MANUSCRIPT]
- proportion.root.area.mm: the proportion of the image that is root hairs (numeric value, NA if individual was not measured) [NOT USED IN MANUSCRIPT]
- dimensions.of.image.mm: the dimensions of the image used to calculate proportions (numeric value, NA if individual was not measured) [NOT USED IN MANUSCRIPT]
- area.of.image.mm2: the area of the image used to calculate root hair metrics (numeric value, NA if individual was not measured) [NOT USED IN MANUSCRIPT]
- root.hair.surface.area.mm2: the area of root hairs present in image (numeric value, NA if individual was not measured) [NOT USED IN MANUSCRIPT]
- propotion.root.hair.area.mm: the proportion of root hairs present in an image (numeric value, NA if individual was not measured) [NOT USED IN MANUSCRIPT]
- sulfide.um: the concentration of sulfide in collected porewater in um (numeric value, NA if individual was not measured)
File: Temp_Tank9.csv
Description:
Variables
- #: a list of row names
- Date Time: date and time water temperature was taken by logger (MM/DD/YYYY HH:MM:SS)
- GMT-07:00: date and time temperature was taken
- Temp, °C (LGR S/N: 10355106, SEN S/N: 10355106): temperature of water in ˚C; format of column: Temperature taken in ˚C: Serial number of logger: Serial number of sensor
File: Temp_Tank8.csv
Description:
Variables
- #: a list of row names
- Date Time: date and time water temperature was taken by logger (MM/DD/YYYY HH:MM:SS)
- GMT-07:00: date and time temperature was taken
- Temp, °C (LGR S/N: 10649822, SEN S/N: 10649822, LBL: Temp): temperature of water in ˚C; format of column: Temperature taken in ˚C: Serial number of logger: Serial number of sensor: Label of sensor set to temperature
Code/software
Programs/software needed:
- Microsoft Excel
Access information
Other publicly accessible locations of the data:
- For scripts, please see publication [Publication DOI] for GitHub access link
- For microbiome FASTQ files, please see publicaiton [Publication DOI] for NCBI Accession Number
For methods on collecting, generating, and processing the data, please see [DOI: 10.1007/s12237-025-01549-6]