Biology subjects

Schiestl, F.

Publications and source records attributed to Schiestl, F..

4 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2026

Warming and biotic interactions shape selection on plant traits and their plasticity

Global warming will impact natural selection on plant traits and their plasticity by influencing phenotypes, biotic interactions, and fitness. Because warming affects biotic interactions, community composition may influence how warming affects selection on plants, but this is little studied. We grew full-sibling pairs of Brassica rapa plants in an ambient and hot temperature environment and exposed them to visitation by a pollinator (Bombus terrestris), a pollinating herbivore (Pieris rapae), or their combination. We recorded plant phenotypes, insect visitation, herbivory, and plant fitness. We used these to calculated phenotypic selection on plant traits and their plasticity, including additive and nonadditive effects. Elevated temperature changed selection on traits related to pollinator attraction, such as flower number, nectar production, and floral scent emission. We found both positive and negative selection on temperature-mediated trait plasticity depending on the biotic treatment. Elevated temperature changed patterns of additive and non-additive selection on a variety of traits including flower morphology and scent. This study shows that elevated temperatures can reshape patterns of phenotypic selection, including nonadditive effects, and plastic trait expression. Effects of elevated temperature on phenotypic selection depended on the biotic interactors, highlighting the importance of community context for the effects of warming on natural selection.

evolutionary biology↗

bioRxiv2025

Coevolution in a warming world: an experimental test of the geographic mosaic of coevolution

According to the geographic mosaic theory of coevolution (GMTC), coevolution varies with abiotic and biotic environmental factors. We assessed this hypothesis using experimental plant-butterfly coevolution and by testing the effects of temperature and the presence of mutualistic bumblebees on co-divergence during six generations of selection. Butterflies are mutualistic by pollinating plants and antagonistic by ovipositing on plants from which caterpillars feed. We found unique plant-butterfly coevolutionary trajectories in response to abiotic and biotic factors: plants evolved strong herbivore resistance when exposed to either bumblebee presence or elevated temperatures, while their combination led to less strong plant-resistance evolution and the evolution of butterfly-foraging traits. We provide experimental proof for the GCMT and show rapid divergent coevolution to the combination of local abiotic and biotic conditions.

evolutionary biology↗

bioRxiv2024

Biotic interactions promote local adaptation to soil in plants

Although different ecological factors shape adaptative evolution in natural habitats, we know little about how their interactions impact local adaptation. Here we used eight generations of experimental evolution with outcrossing Brassica rapa plants as a model system, in eight treatment groups that varied in soil type, herbivory (with/without aphids), and pollination mode (hand- or bumblebee-pollination), to study how biotic interactions affect local adaptation to soil. First, we show that several plant traits evolved in response to biotic interactions in a soil-specific way. Second, using a reciprocal transplant experiment, we demonstrate that significant local adaptation to soil-type evolved in the "number of open flowers", a trait used as a fitness proxy, but only in plants that evolved with herbivory and bee pollination. Whole genome re-sequencing of experimental lines revealed that biotic interactions caused a 10-fold increase in the number of SNPs across the genome with significant allele frequency change, and that alleles with opposite allele frequency change in different soil types (antagonistic pleiotropy) were most common in plants with an evolutionary history of herbivory and bee pollination. Our results demonstrate that the interaction of mutualists and antagonists can facilitate local adaptation to soil type through antagonistic pleiotropy.

evolutionary biology↗

bioRxiv2020

I ncreased accuracy of signaling by hyperbolic odorant mixtures in a beneficial insect-plant relationship

Animals use odors in many natural contexts, for example, for finding mates or food, or signaling danger. Most analyses of natural odors search for either the most meaningful components of a natural odor mixture, or they use linear metrics to analyze the mixture compositions. However, we have recently shown that the physical space for complex mixtures is hyperbolic, meaning that there are certain combination of variables that have a disproportionately large impact on perception and that these variables have specific interpretation in terms of metabolic processes taking place inside the flower and fruit that produce the odors. Here we show that the statistics of odorants and odorant mixtures produced by inflorescences (Brassica rapa) are also better described with a hyperbolic rather than a linear metric, and that combinations of odorants in the hyperbolic space are better predictors of the nectar and pollen resources sought by bee pollinators than the standard Euclidian combinations. We also show that honey bee and bumble bee antennae can detect most components of the B. rapa odor space, and the strength of responses correlates with positions of odorants in the hyperbolic space. In sum, a hyperbolic representation can be used to guide investigation of how information is represented at different levels of processing in the CNS.

animal behavior and cognition↗