On the hidden temporal dynamics of plant adaptation

Adaptation to a wide range of environments is a major driver of plant diversity. It is now possible to catalog millions of potential adaptive genomic differences segregating between environ-ments within a plant species in a single experiment. Under-standing which of these changes contributes to adaptive phenotypic divergence between plant populations is a major goal of evolutionary biologists and crop breeders. In this review, we briefly highlight the approaches frequently used to understand the genetic basis of adaptive phenotypes in plants, and we discuss some of the limitations of these methods. We propose that direct observation of the process of adaptation using multigenerational studies and whole genome sequencing is a crucial missing component of recent studies of plant adaptation because it complements several shortcom-ings of sampling-based techniques.

Automated summary

Adaptation to a wide range of environments is crucial for plant diversity. Understanding the genetic basis of adaptive phenotypes in plants is a major goal for evolutionary biologists and crop breeders. Current methods have limitations, and direct observation of the adaptation process is essential.