Adapting to novel environments

Plants inhabit an enormous range of habitats. Studying how they adapted to their specific environments can provide fundamental biological insights as well as information that can help to reduce the impacts of climate change on natural and agricultural ecosystems. We investigate the mechanisms of adaptation in natural populations of the molecular and eco-evolutionary model plant, Arabidopsis thaliana. This system is ideal for connecting the biochemical and molecular bases of trait variation with its ecological and evolutionary context.