Project BaselineA Seed Bank to study plant evolution

Project Baseline:A seed bank to study how plants are evolving in response to global climate change- Multi-university, NSF-funded project- 2nd summer of 50-year project

How it BeganAfter a drought, garlic mustard seeds exhibited a change in flowering time

Why is the Baseline seed bank useful?

- Little currently known about the rate of evolution in the wild- Climate change alters selective pressures, affects evolution- Rich source of information about evolutionary questions for future generations

Why is the Baseline seed bank useful? (cont’d)

- Living genome bank allows for use of resurrection approach- allows us to distinguish between genotypic & phenotypic changes

Baseline Species & Sites- Both native and invasive- Common throughout the United States- thrive in frequently disturbed meadows - Collect at sites where we can return for several decades (university research forests, LTERs)

Rumex crispus, or curly dock

Impatiens capensis, jewelweed or touch-me-not

Rudbeckia hirta or black-eyed susan

Baseline Field Work

- Depends on phenology: the timing of the populations’ life cycle

- Cold, long winter resulted in later phenology than usual

Impatiens pallida

Map of Summer 2014 Baseline sites (visited and collected at ~20)

Lake Lacawac, PA Harvard Forest, MA

Where do you come in?- NYBG volunteers clean the seeds so they can

be packaged and sent to the storage facility.- The seeds will be stored until a scientist uses

them to conduct a resurrection-approach experiment!

Thank you for helping Project Baseline succeed!

Project Baseline AcknowledgementsMany thanks to Steve Franks and Jenn Weber, our Project manager Katie Winkler, Beth Ansaldi and the Baseline undergraduate team, and the volunteer coordinators at the New York Botanical Gardens.