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Climate change drives convergent evolution of root traits on Sky Island climate relicts

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Abstract

Roots are essential to the strategies plants use to survive in variable environments, yet we know little of how they vary within species. Experimental conditions demonstrate that intraspecific plant root traits respond strongly to variation in the environment; however, it is unclear when these responses can be characterized as evolution in response to selective pressures of climate change over many generations. Sky Islands are model, natural climate relict ecosystems to examine climate-change driven evolution. Utilizing a common garden with replicate genotypes of Populus angustifolia (Narrowleaf cottonwood) from six Sky Island (SI) populations and nine adjacent Mountain Chain (MC) populations across three genetic provenances, we hypothesized that SI root traits have diverged due to historical isolation in warmer, drier climates. When grown in common conditions, populations originating on SI’s showed convergent evolution across three distinct genetic provenances, which was characterized by 44.16% decreased total root length, 42.64% decreased average root volume, 43.31% decreased root surface area, and significantly less root trait variation, relative to adjacent mountain chains. Convergent evolution of root traits from trees originating on SI’s is correlated with changes in mean annual precipitation and potential evapotranspiration in the field over the past ~ 125 years. These results demonstrate a consistent pattern in root trait evolution at the landscape scale and the role of climate on the evolution of root traits in a genetic and geographic context relevant to climate change.

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Data availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available in figshare at https//doi.org/. The long-term climate data, including mean annual temperature and mean annual precipitation from 1895 to 2022, were derived from the Oregon State University PRISM Weather Data, available in the public domain: https//doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.29374034. The modern climate data, including potential evapotranspiration, mean annual temperature, and mean annual precipitation from 2021, were derived from the following resources, available in the public domain: ClimateNA https://climatena.ca/mapversion (for mean annual temperature and mean annual precipitation); CGIAR-CSI Global Aridity Index and Potential Evapotranspiration (ET0) Database v3 (for potential evapotranspiration).

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Jeff Martin and greenhouse staff as well as Emma Kruse for supporting the research and writing process. We would also like to give special thanks to Sarah Love for assisting in the identification and collection of cuttings from the field.

Funding

LEP was supported by the University of Tennessee – Oak Ridge Innovation Institute through the Graduate Advancement, Training and Education (GATE) Fellowship. LMY was supported by the Center for Bioenergy Innovation (CBI), which is a U.S. Department of Energy Bioenergy Research Center supported by the Office of Biological and Environmental Research in the DOE Office of Science. This manuscript has been authored in part by UT-Battelle, LLC that manages Oak Ridge National Laboratory under contract DE-AC05-00OR22725 with the US Department of Energy (DOE). The publisher acknowledges the US government license to provide public access under the DOE Public Access Plan (https://energy.gov/downloads/doe-public-access-plan).

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  1. Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Tennessee, 569 Dabney Hall, 1416 Circle Dr, Knoxville, TN, 37996, USA

    Lorren E. Politano, Joseph K. Bailey & Jennifer A. Schweitzer

  2. Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN, USA

    Larry M. York

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  1. Lorren E. Politano
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  2. Larry M. York
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LEP, JKB, and JAS planned and designed the research. LMY informed data collection methodology and LEP performed data collection and experiments. LEP analyzed data and wrote the manuscript, while LMY, JKB, and JAS provided essential feedback and suggestions.

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Politano, L.E., York, L.M., Bailey, J.K. et al. Climate change drives convergent evolution of root traits on Sky Island climate relicts.
Sci Rep (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-31134-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-31134-7

Keywords

  • Convergent evolution
  • Local adaptation

  • Populus
  • Root functional traits
  • Sky Islands

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