SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry Digital Commons @ ESF Dissertations and Theses 12-9-2019 Conservation Insights for Endemic Alpine Plants (Nabalus spp.) Facing Global Environmental Change Kristen Haynes [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.esf.edu/etds Part of the Forest Biology Commons, Genetics Commons, and the Genomics Commons Recommended Citation Haynes, Kristen, "Conservation Insights for Endemic Alpine Plants (Nabalus spp.) Facing Global Environmental Change" (2019). Dissertations and Theses. 118. https://digitalcommons.esf.edu/etds/118 This Open Access Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by Digital Commons @ ESF. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations and Theses by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ ESF. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. CONSERVATION INSIGHTS FOR ENDEMIC ALPINE PLANTS (NABALUS SPP.) FACING GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE by Kristen R. Haynes A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Doctor of Philosophy Degree State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry Syracuse, New York December 2019 Department of Environmental and Forest Biology Approved by: Donald J. Leopold, Major Professor Douglas M. Johnston, Chair, Examining Committee Melissa K. Fierke, Department Chair S. Scott Shannon, Graduate School Dean © 2019 Copyright K. R. Haynes All rights reserved ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS It takes a village to raise a child…and support a dissertation to completion. This work would not have been possible witHout the intellectual contributions, financial assistance, logistical help, and emotional support of so many people. First, I would like to thank my advisor, Donald Leopold, who took me on as a student and gave me the freedom to develop my own research project. Don always supported and encouraged my professional endeavors as well as my academic ones, and always found time to meet, review documents, provide advice, and write letters of reference in the midst of a busy schedule as department chair. Additionally, I would like to thank the members of my committee for their support throughout this project. Sean Robinson, Danilo Fernando, and Jannice Friedman gave critical guidance in molecular methods and also generously provided laboratory space, training, and other resources. Mark Lomolino helped expand my biogeographic thinking and knowledge, and initially encouraged me to enter the PhD program. John Stella provided exceedingly helpful statistical advice and fresh ideas on these chapters. Many individuals provided technical and/or logistical support for this project, including: Abrar (Abbi) Aljiboury, Sarge Boss, Sara Cairns, Paul Casson, Heather Coleman, Terry Ettinger, Julia Goren, Arthur Haines, Jean Hoekwater, Mike Jones, Mike LeBlanc, Paul Logue, Bob Popp, Bill Powell, Matthew Rubin, Kari Seagraves, Dan Sperduto, Lisa St. Hilaire, Stephen Stehman, Bill White, and Steve Young. In particular, I would like to thank Randall Grimshaw and the ESF Computing and Network Services staff who quickly arranged my access to a supercomputer for several months, which enabled me to complete critical analyses for this dissertation. My thanks also to EFB office staff members Sandra Polimino, Faith Ashmore, Joanne Rappleyea, and AnnMarie Clarke for their assistance throughout my degree process. I am deeply indebted to my research and field assistants, whose hard work was so critical to this project’s completion. They include Jared Carpentier, Hannah Kowalsky, Jani Liu, Austin Miller, Siobhan Rubsam, Elysa Smigielski, and Kyle Turchick. My thanks also go to the Adirondack High Peaks Summit Stewards, as well as ESF student volunteers Charlotte Bernhard, Amanda Christiano, Sean Cromwell, Aaron Goodell, and Alexandra Grove, who all provided short-term assistance with data collection and processing tasks. For site access, I am grateful to the Adirondack Mountain Club, Baxter State Park, Beyond Ktaadn, Jarvis Forest Management, the Mount Washington Auto Road (and Howie Wemyss), and the Whiteface Mountain Atmospheric Sciences Research Center, Veterans’ Memorial Highway and Ski Resort. This project certainly could not have been completed without financial support. My sincere thanks to the Edna Bailey Sussman Foundation, the ADKHighpeaks Foundation, the ESF College Foundation/Department of Environmental and Forest Biology (Dr. Samuel Grober ’38 Graduate Fellowship, Edwin H. KetcHledge Scholarship Fund), and the Office of Instruction and Graduate Studies (travel grant) for their funding. I extend additional thanks to Beyond Ktaadn for sponsoring my ADKHighpeaks Foundation application and managing the resulting funds. Additionally, I would like to thank the Department of Environmental and Forest Biology for providing me with funding via a teaching assistantship for four years and Stacy McNulty/the Adirondack Ecological Center for providing a graduate assistantship for one semester. Thank iii you to Justin Fiene and Melissa Fierke for providing both funding and an incredible opportunity to work in the capacity of Business Manager at Cranberry Lake Biological Station. Finally, I am grateful to Tom Horton for offering me a paid position after I had exhausted my assistantship allotment. Most recently, I would like to thank Kamal Mohamed for supporting my degree completion as I began a new position at SUNY Oswego. Many current and former members of the Leopold Lab and other plant ecology labs at ESF provided important feedback on this project as well as emotional support. In particular, I would like to thank Grete Day, Jessica Cuneo, Toby Liss, James Molloy, Alex Petzke, and Justine Weber for sharing their office and botanical/statistical knowledge with me, and always finding time for a kind word. My thanks also to Margaret Roberts for statistical advice. Many other members of the Ecolunch group—professors and students—provided creative ideas and important critique over the years, for which I am grateful. Finally, I’ve discovered that for the PhD process, as with many other challenging endeavors in life, the mental/emotional challenge is far more significant than the academic/physical challenge. My sincere thanks to many wonderful friends who have provided encouragement along the way–some listed above, and others here: Marissa Cardillo, Daniel Cuneo, Maggie Diu, Kiersten Frenchu, Amanda Gordon, Bridget Hegarty, Debby Hepburn, Janice Lau, Sungsu Lee, Hannah MacLean, Christine Madonia, Aditi Naik, Crystal Ngai, Amanda Pachomski, Maureen Rheinheimer, MJ Sun, and the Alibrandi Catholic Community. My thanks also to my aunts, uncles, grandmother, and other family members for their love and continued interest in my progress. My parents-in-law David Beguin and Cindy Bentley have also been wonderfully supportive and I am grateful especially for the helpful and motivating remote dissertation writing sessions with Cindy. Enormous thanks go to my parents Deborah and Russell Haynes, who first inspired my love of the Adirondacks, and mountains in general. Your unending love, support, encouragement, and care have meant everything. I am here today because of you, and because you always believed in me. My thanks also for your field assistance and transcribing support at critical times during this process! Finally, my deep thanks to my husband, Samouel Beguin. He has been my number one laboratory and field assistant, writing reviewer, and scientific sounding board for years. More important than that, though, has been his love and his untiring belief in me. Thank you for being there during this project every step of the way! “Somewhere between the bottom of the climb and the summit is the answer to the mystery why we climb.” —Greg Child, Australian writer and mountaineer iv TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES ........................................................................................................................ vi LIST OF FIGURES ..................................................................................................................... vii LIST OF APPENDICES ............................................................................................................... ix ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................................. xii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................1 CHAPTER 2: ASSESSING CLIMATE CHANGE TOLERANCE AND THE NICHE BREADTH-RANGE SIZE HYPOTHESIS IN RARE AND WIDESPREAD RATTLESNAKE- ROOTS .........................................................................................................................................15 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................16 METHODS .......................................................................................................................20 RESULTS .........................................................................................................................29 DISCUSSION ...................................................................................................................33 TABLES & FIGURES ......................................................................................................43 CHAPTER 3: GENOMIC INVESTIGATION OF THE HISTORIC AND FUTURE PERSISTENCE OF OBLIGATE AND FACULTATIVE MOUNTAINTOP