Biology subjects

Fay, M. F.

Publications and source records attributed to Fay, M. F..

3 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2025

Two hundred years of changes in orchid pollination revealed using herbarium specimens

Orchids are one of the most diverse plant families and are renowned for their highly specialised interactions with pollinators. Despite growing evidence of orchid population decline, pollinator decline and rising concerns for orchid reproductive success, long-term changes remain poorly understood. To address this gap, we analysed changes in pollinarium removal, as a proxy for pollination success, in herbarium specimens of three species-rich orchid genera (Disa, Oncidium and Ophrys) hosted at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, which has a rich and diverse orchid collection spanning the past two centuries. The selected genera occur in different major regions (subtropical and tropical Africa, predominantly temperate Europe, and tropical America, respectively). Our analysis reveals that pollinarium removal declined significantly in Disa and Oncidium, particularly among species with deceptive strategies or specialised pollination mechanisms. In contrast, Ophrys showed a significant increase, driven by Apidae-pollinated species, whereas pollinarium removal for Andrenidae-pollinated species declined over time. These contrasting findings reflect the role of orchid identity, pollinator availability and pollination strategy in shaping reproductive success under anthropogenic change. Overall, this study demonstrates the power of herbarium specimens to reveal long-term ecological changes, providing unique insights into the response of specific plant-pollinator interactions to increasing anthropogenic pressure.

plant biology↗

bioRxiv2024

Plastic responses to past environments shape adaptation to novel selection pressures

Phenotypic plasticity may pave the way for rapid adaptation to newly encountered environments. Although it is often contested, there is growing evidence that initial plastic responses of ancestral populations to new environmental cues may promote subsequent adaptation. However, we do not know whether plasticity to cues present in the ancestral habitat (past-cue plasticity) can facilitate adaptation to novel cues. Conceivably, this could occur if plastic responses are coincidentally optimal to both past and novel cues (i.e., are pre-adaptive) or if they are transferred to novel cues during adaptation. Past plastic phenotype values could also become fixed and genetically co-opted during adaptation to the new environment. To uncover the role of past-cue plasticity in adaptation, we tested gene expression plasticity responses of two parallel mine-waste adapted Silene uniflora populations and their closest coastal relatives. Plants were exposed to the past and novel-cues of salt and zinc, which revealed that during adaptation to mine-waste plasticity to salt diminishes. Despite this, our results show that ancestral plasticity to salt has a substantial impact on subsequent adaptation to zinc. For a third of genes that have evolved zinc plasticity in mine populations, salt plasticity has been transferred to the zinc response. Furthermore, a quarter of fixed expression differences between mine and coastal populations were similar to ancestral salt responses. Alongside evidence that ancestral plasticity to novel cues can facilitate adaptation, our results provide a clear indication that ancestral past-cue plasticity can also play a key role in rapid, parallel adaptation to novel habitats. Significance StatementThe role of phenotypic plasticity in promoting adaptation is hotly debated, with conflicting evidence for the benefits of ancestral plasticity in newly encountered environments. Here, we present an alternative mode by which ancestral plasticity can promote adaptation. We investigated whether phenotypic plasticity towards environmental cues that are experienced only in ancestral habitats (past-cue plasticity) can significantly contribute towards rapid adaptation to completely distinct cues. We show that, in the maritime plant species, Silene uniflora, past-cue plasticity to salt has made a substantial contribution to rapid adaptation to heavy-metal pollution in newly encountered habitats. This phenomenon has broad implications for the capacity and predictability of species to persist in the face of anthropogenic environmental change.

evolutionary biology↗

bioRxiv2020

Rapid Parallel Adaptation to Anthropogenic Heavy Metal Pollution

The impact of human mediated environmental change on the evolutionary trajectories of wild organisms is poorly understood. In particular, species capacity to adapt rapidly (in hundreds of generations or less), reproducibly and predictably to extreme environmental change is unclear. Silene uniflora is predominantly a coastal species, but it has also colonised isolated, disused mines with phytotoxic, zinc-contaminated soils. Here, we found that rapid parallel adaptation to anthropogenic pollution has taken place without geneflow spreading adaptive alleles between populations of the mine ecotype. Across replicate ecotype pairs, we identified shared targets of selection with functions linked to physiological differences between the ecotypes, although the genetic response is only partially shared between mine populations. Our results are consistent with a complex, polygenic genetic architecture underpinning rapid adaptation. This shows that even under a scenario of strong selection and rapid adaptation, evolutionary responses to human activities may be idiosyncratic at the genetic level and, therefore, difficult to predict from genomic data.

evolutionary biology↗