Climate Gradients and Habitat Discontinuity Structure Genetic Variation in a Spring-Specialist Plant

Background and Aims Groundwater-dependent ecosystems support disproportionate biodiversity in arid regions, yet the population genetics of spring-specialist plants remains poorly understood. Here, we present the first species-wide genetic dataset for crimson monkeyflower ( Mimulus verbenaceus, Phrymaceae), a spring-specialist plant distributed in seeps, springs, and associated riparian areas across desert regions of North America.

Using genome-wide reduced representation sequencing data consisting of 10,760 SNPs from 175 individuals across 17 populations, we characterized the patterns of genetic diversity using FST and Nei’s D. Population structure was assessed using ADMIXTURE and PCA. We examined the contributions of climate to range-wide genetic variation in crimson monkeyflower using redundancy analysis. Key Results Patterns of genetic differentiation were more consistent with those of spring-specialist animal taxa than those of upland plants or generalist riparian plants. We found strong population structure at both broad regional scales and at fine local scales. While riparian connectivity influenced local patterns of diversity, adaptation to local climatic variation was more influential at regional scales, with temperature, relative humidity, and a monsoon-driven climate gradient structuring genetic differentiation.

Our findings highlight the distinctive influence of isolated perennial groundwater sources, as well as adaptation to climate, in shaping genetic variation in this spring-specialist plant. These findings suggest that spring-specialist plants deserve special consideration in ecological theory, management, and conservation. Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest.