Abstract

Climate change will have evolutionary consequences. Phenotypic traits related to thermal tolerance and phenology are likely targets for shifting selection regimes. The resurrection approach offers a method for detecting evolutionary response to selection. In a resurrection experiment, dormant propagules from an ancestral generation are revived and grown side-by-side with those from a descendant generation. Phenotypic differences between the two generations, when grown in the same environment, indicate evolutionary (genetic) change. Researchers that did plant resurrection studies over the past decade have had good luck--they had access to a suitable collection of ancestral generation seeds. But these collections were gathered and preserved for other purposes.  Not all, and probably not most, historic accessions are adequate for resurrection experiments. Project Baseline was established to build a collection of ancestral seed generations structured specifically to gauge plant phenotypic evolution (https://www.baselineseedbank.org/). We collected and preserved seed from 65 North American plant species in 2012-15.  Species were chosen, when possible, in congeneric pairs. Each species was collected from 10 or more sites, and at each site we collected ~100 maternal lines. This genetic resource in now available to researchers for use in resurrection experiments and supporting genetic research. I will share my own “good luck” story that was the genesis of Project Baseline.