XVI International Botanical Congess

Developmental programs are suites of evolved traits that specify when and how meristems are committed to structures that differ in life history function. These programs modulate fitness by placing constraints on plasticity. In Podophyllum peltatum, a long lived clonal plant of the deciduous forest floor, we find that: the developmental program of preformation constrains mayapples' capacity for short-term ecological response, environments present when organ primordia are initiated govern properties of mature structures, and variation in developmental traits among clones are stable, presumably of genetic origin, and give rise to fitness differences among clones. Understanding the interaction between developmental programs and the environment provides insight into how environmental variation affects developmental trajectory and, he