Das Projekt "Biochange" wird/wurde gefördert durch: Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich, Competence Centre for Environment and Sustainability. Es wird/wurde ausgeführt durch: Eidgenössische Forschungsanstalt für Wald, Schnee und Landschaft.Are alpine plants capable of coping with predicted global warming? Do they adjust to newly experienced environmental conditions (adaptation), will they establish in newly colonized habitats (migration), or do they face extinction? Climate warming is predicted to result in an above-average temperature increase in the European Alps, but changes in the variation of climate variables are far from being understood to date. However, extreme weather conditions are likely to have stronger effects on plant survival than does a shift in means. The responses of plant populations to the expected environmental changes are either to adapt, to migrate, or to go extinct. Within the CCES-supported initiative BioChange, we study the variation in adaptive loci of the widespread plant species Arabis alpina. A combination of genome scans, selection experiments, hand pollinations, and paternity analysis will reveal how adaptive variation is spread across an alpine environment, considering qualitative and quantitative landscape features (landscape genomics). This study will thus elucidate the dynamics of adaptive variation in space and time.