9752947 Galloway An individual's phenotype may be influenced by its parents' genes and environment, in addition to its own. In the herbaceous plant Campanula americana, timing of germination determines whether an individual will be an annual or a biennial. The proposed research will evaluate the potential for parental effects, both genetic and environmental, to influence germination time and hence life history variation in this species. In this POWRE proposal, Laura Galloway will evaluate the potential for parental environments to influence patterns of seed germination by growing seeds produced under a range of maternal and paternal environments (light and nutrient) under both controlled and natural conditions. She will also determine the potential for specific maternal characters to influence germination patterns. In particular, maternal flowering time is likely to influence fruiting phenology, and that in turn may affect patterns of offspring germination. And, she will measure the association between germination time and fitness in a natural population to evaluate the importance of parental effects for individual success. This work will help determine whether it is necessary to follow populations for more than one generation to predict patterns of response to selection. This POWRE award permits Dr. Galloway to expand her research program by exploring new questions (evolutionary consequences of maternal effects) in a new model system (Campanula americana). It will help establish her in a tenure-track position, in a discipline of field-oriented population biological research previously represented only by men at her institution.
