View article

1. Understanding how plants respond and adapt to varying environmental conditions has attracted the attention of plant ecologists for decades. To study this process, altitudinal gradients are used because of their inherent variation in environmental conditions. In the current scenario of global warming, altitudinal gradients may also represent a valuable resource to deepen our understanding about plant adaptive responses to predicted changes in environmental conditions.

2. Nowadays, the study of adaptive variation demands equal contributions from ecology and genetics. We need to assess the effects of selective pressures on phenotypic variation but also the genetic and molecular basis of phenotypic traits. The annual plant Arabidopsis thaliana represents a useful model system for investigating adaptive variation. Here, I characterized patterns of life cycle variation in natural A. thaliana populations along an …