In This Issue

Organisms unable to rapidly adapt to climate change may decline and disappear from their previous habitats. Restoring populations of plants from seed banks may be unsuccessful if the seeds’ preferred climate does not match the target region’s new climate. Immigrant plants of the same species from historically warmer climates, however, may be able to thrive. Amity Wilczek et al. (pp. 7906–7913) planted banked seeds of Arabidopsis thaliana in four locations across the species’ native European range. Although seeds originating from sites near the planting locations performed well at each site, varieties originating from climates historically warmer than the planting sites’ displayed greater fitness than the native varieties, especially at the northernmost planting site in Finland. The authors also found that the season of germination affected fitness of immigrant plants from warmer climates at a site in the United Kingdom, and that populations with summer germination may be better suited to warm future climates than populations with other germination seasons. The results suggest that banked seeds may be subject to adaptation lag within a few decades, complicating plant conservation efforts using banked seed populations, according to the authors. — P.G.