CLEVELAND — Holden Forests & Gardens will launch a new project using the conifer collection at Holden Arboretum to research plasticity and trait variation in conifer species and how native range distributions affect them.
Postdoctoral researcher Dr. Randy Long will lead the research team. Dr. Long and his collaborators believe that species will have the highest growth rates and success in gardens within their current ranges. They also hypothesize that species currently found in many environments will show more variation in traits than species with narrow ranges.
Botanic gardens and arboreta offer a golden opportunity to deal with these questions in long-lived species, given that many of these organizations share the same species, sometimes clones of the same individuals, planted across large environmental gradients.
Another advantage is that they have complete records of the source material and planting. Also, it has well-informed staff who are ready to provide thorough information on the local conditions and the collections.
The project involves numerous organizations such as the Colorado Botanic Garden (Denver, CO), the Hoyt Arboretum (Portland, OR), the San Francisco Botanic Garden (CA), the National Arboretum (Washington), and the Huntington Botanic Gardens (Pasadena, CA).
Dr. Long has classified 30 iconic species across the gardens and will measure a set of traits related to plant suitability, stem and leaf anatomy, and plant size in this collaboration.
These indicators will help offer insight into the procedure underlying the distribution of conifer species and reactions to anthropogenic pressures.
Also, these measurements will pave the way for researchers to compare trait plasticity, anatomy, and growth rates available in different garden ranges.