Paper Reviewed
Ravenscroft, C.H., Whitlock, R.A.J. and Fridley, J.D. 2015. Rapid genetic divergence in response to 15 years of simulated climate change. Global Change Biology 21: 4165-4176.

Working with Plantago lanceolata (a forb with wide geographical distribution) at the Buxton Climate Change Impacts Laboratory (BCCIL) in northern England, Ravenscroft et al. (2015) used amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) data to assess genetic divergence and test for signatures of evolutionary change driven by the simulated climate changes (heat and drought) that they applied to grassland plots at that location for a period of 15 years.

This work revealed, in the words of the three researchers, "significant genetic differentiation between climate change treatments and control plots," with outlier analyses revealing "a consistent signature of selection associated with experimental climate treatments at individual AFLP loci in P. lanceolata." And these results, as they further note, "are consistent with an evolutionary response to climatic selection in P. lanceolata," which they suggest could have contributed to the persistence of approximately 15 sequential generations of the studied forb species as the heat and drought treatments were intensified. Such findings bode well for the future of this forb if the climate becomes hotter and/or dryer.