Adaptive alleles on the prairie

This chapter discusses the study of grassland ecology in the realm of ecological genomics, an integrative field of study aiming to understand the genetic mechanisms underlying responses of plants to their environment. The focus here is on plant response to climate and rainfall as drought can reduce grassland productivity, with cascading effects on ecosystem services. Therefore, understanding the genetic mechanisms of how plants respond to drought can predict the effect of global change on grasslands. Specifically, this chapter describes ecological genomic tools to study grasslands by discovering the functions of genes and the genetic basis of phenotypic variation. Next, we describe using ecological genomics to study adaptation to climate and intraspecific variation in grasses. We review the current literature in grassland ecological genomics, highlight the current focus of research, and identify long-term studies in ecological communities that have gaps in current knowledge. We then show a case study of the dominant grass Andropogon gerardii (big bluestem) as an example of modern ecological genomic analyses. This chapter uses this species to detail the assessment of genotype, transcriptome, and ecological function. Overall, this chapter outlines the study of genomics with the aim of understanding the ecological function and the response of grassland species to their changing environment.