A species’ geographic distribution is an ecological pattern that emerges largely from the evolutionary process of adaptation, with the limits of that distribution often marking the boundary between adaptation and maladaptation. But most species live across complex gradients in which many biotic and abiotic conditions change together, so it is rarely obvious which factors actually set the edge of a range.
Using transplant experiments with Clarkia xantiana spanning the center, margin, and beyond-margin of its range, we tested how biotic interactions — herbivory, pollination, and mycorrhizal and soil-microbial mutualisms — combine with the abiotic environment to limit fitness and set range margins. This body of work showed that biotic interactions, not climate alone, can contribute to where a species’ range ends.
With Dave Moeller (Minnesota), Monica Geber (Cornell), and collaborators.
Key publications
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Seed predation increases from the Arctic to the Equator and from high to low elevations
Anna L Hargreaves, Esteban Suárez, Klaus Mehltreter, Isla Myers-Smith, Sula E Vanderplank, Heather L Slinn, and 5 more authors
Science Advances, 2019
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Mycorrhizal interactions do not influence plant–herbivore interactions in populations of Clarkia xantiana ssp. xantiana spanning from center to margin of the geographic range
Lana G Bolin^, John W Benning, and David A Moeller
Ecology and Evolution, 2018
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Biotic interactions contribute to the geographic range limit of an annual plant: herbivory and phenology mediate fitness beyond a range margin
John W Benning, Vincent M Eckhart, Monica A Geber, and David A Moeller
The American Naturalist, 2019
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Maladaptation beyond a geographic range limit driven by antagonistic and mutualistic biotic interactions across an abiotic gradient
John W Benning and David A Moeller
Evolution, 2019
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Microbes, mutualism, and range margins: testing the fitness consequences of soil microbial communities across and beyond a native plant’s range
John W Benning and David A Moeller
New Phytologist, 2021
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Plant–soil interactions limit lifetime fitness outside a native plant’s geographic range margin
John W Benning and David A Moeller
Ecology, 2021
