Format: ORAL

Jeannine Cavender-Bares1, 2, Jess Pinto-Ledezma1, Clarissa Fontes1, Kieran Althaus3,4,Andrew Hipp3

1. Department of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior, University of Minnesota, Saint Paul, Minnesota, USA 2. Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA 3. Morton Arboretum, Lisle, Illinois, USA 4. Biological Sciences, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA

Oaks (genus Quercus L) are an important adaptive radiation that includes ecological dominants on five continents with extraordinary diversity and abundance. They are major contributors to ecosystem function, including climate regulation and support of biodiversity in Northern Hemisphere temperate forest systems. Biogeographic history, including past environmental change, have influenced the diversification process and evolution of functional traits. Trait evolution, in turn, has influenced the habitats that the species across the lineage can occupy. Trait evolution in the oaks shows evidence for phylogenetic inertia and adaptation in response to novel environments. We show examples of freezing tolerance and vulnerability to drought as well as chemical and structural foliar traits of leaves as derived from spectral signatures. We test how traits evolved in response to new environmental challenges and whether evolutionary shifts in traits allowed species to colonize new habitats. We show that the coordinated process of diversification in traits and ecological niches explains community assembly processes at continental scale in the Americas. Insights from addressing these questions have far reaching implications for understanding the nature of trait and niche evolution in other lineages across the tree of life.