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Recent studies have shown that genetically based traits of plants can structure associated arthropod and microbial communities, but whether the effects are consistent and repeatable across years is unknown. If communities are both heritable (i.e., related individuals tend to support similar communities) and repeatable (i.e., the same patterns observed over multiple years), then plant genetics may also affect community properties previously thought to be emergent, such as ‘‘stability.’’ Using replicated clones of narrowleaf cottonwood (Populus angustifolia) and examining an arthropod community of 103 species, we found that (1) individual tree genotypes supported significantly different arthropod communities, which exhibited broad-sense heritability; (2) these findings were highly repeatable over three consecutive years (repeatability¼0.91) indicating that community responses to individual tree genotypes are consistent from year to year; (3) differences among tree genotypes in community stability (i.e., changes in community composition over multiple years) exhibited broad-sense heritability (H2C ¼0.32). In combination, these findings suggest that an emergent property such as stability can be genetically based and thus subject to natural selection.

Item Type:	Refereed Article
Research Division:	Biological Sciences
Research Group:	Genetics
Research Field:	Genetics not elsewhere classified
Objective Division:	Environmental Policy, Climate Change and Natural Hazards
Objective Group:	Adaptation to climate change
Objective Field:	Ecosystem adaptation to climate change
UTAS Author:	Bailey, JK (Associate Professor Joe Bailey)
ID Code:	67524
Year Published:	2010
Web of Science® Times Cited:	70
Deposited By:	Plant Science
Deposited On:	2011-03-04
Last Modified:	2011-05-13
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