A transplant experiment, or common garden experiment, is an
experiment
An experiment is a procedure carried out to support or refute a hypothesis, or determine the efficacy or likelihood of something previously untried. Experiments provide insight into cause-and-effect by demonstrating what outcome occurs whe ...
to test the effect of
environment by moving two species from their native environments into a common environment. The name was originally applied to experiments on plants but is now equally applied to animals such as lizards and ants, and other organisms.
A reciprocal transplant experiment involves introducing organisms from each of two environments into the other; the approach can be extended to more than two environments if required.
Transplant experiments are often used to test if there is a
genetic component to differences in populations. Advances in
molecular biology
Molecular biology is a branch of biology that seeks to understand the molecule, molecular basis of biological activity in and between Cell (biology), cells, including biomolecule, biomolecular synthesis, modification, mechanisms, and interactio ...
have provided researchers with the ability to study
genetic variation
Genetic variation is the difference in DNA among individuals or the differences between populations among the same species. The multiple sources of genetic variation include mutation and genetic recombination. Mutations are the ultimate sources ...
more directly. However, transplant experiments still have the advantages of being simple and requiring little technology. On the other hand, they may require considerable time and labour, and the number of test organisms is often relatively limited.
Common garden methods can be improved by combining evidence with
genomic
Genomics is an interdisciplinary field of molecular biology focusing on the structure, function, evolution, mapping, and editing of genomes. A genome is an organism's complete set of DNA, including all of its genes as well as its hierarchical, ...
studies, the use of dense marker panel data, and modern statistical methods.
See also
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Ecotype
Ecotypes are organisms which belong to the same species but possess different phenotypical features as a result of environmental factors such as elevation, climate and predation. Ecotypes can be seen in wide geographical distributions and may event ...
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Field experiment
Field experiments are experiments carried out outside of laboratory settings.
They randomly assign subjects (or other sampling units) to either treatment or control groups to test claims of causal relationships. Random assignment helps establ ...
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Genotype
The genotype of an organism is its complete set of genetic material. Genotype can also be used to refer to the alleles or variants an individual carries in a particular gene or genetic location. The number of alleles an individual can have in a ...
and
phenotype
In genetics, the phenotype () is the set of observable characteristics or traits of an organism. The term covers the organism's morphology (physical form and structure), its developmental processes, its biochemical and physiological propert ...
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Natural experiment
A natural experiment is a study in which individuals (or clusters of individuals) are exposed to the experimental and control conditions that are determined by nature or by other factors outside the control of the investigators. The process gove ...
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QST-FST analyses
References
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Biology experiments