Boechera is closely related to Arabidopsis, providing access to information and techniques from this model plant species. B. stricta is an inbreeding-tolerant sexual diploid, which facilitates positional cloning to identify the genes underlying quantitative trait loci (QTLs). Our study populations are genetically and ecologically undisturbed, so evolutionary analyses can relate existing genetic variation to current and historical environmental contexts. Due to elevation gradients and geography, these populations have experienced heterogeneous environmental conditions, and they are locally adapted to some of these ecological differences. In order to study the genes that matter in ecology we require undisturbed populations and the ability to clone QTLs. This combination of ecological and genetic characteristics is available in Boechera , but not in other crucifers (A. thaliana, A. lyrata, Capsella, and Brassica ) that we have studied previously.

Several experiments have examined genomics, transcription profiling, phylogeography, breeding system, and local adaptation in Boechera . We developed a linkage map based on ~ 200 F2 lines in B. stricta , which have now been advanced to recombinant inbred lines. More than 200 codominant PCR-based markers have been mapped, and a 400kb region has been sequenced in two genotypes, showing that the Boechera genome is highly colinear with Arabidopsis . Positional cloning of ecologically important genes is feasible in B. stricta, and we are very close to cloning a QTL which controls insect resistance in natural populations.

Our research is focused on a 25,000 square mile area in the Northern Rocky Mountains which provides undisturbed research sites and extensive environmental heterogeneity across a 7,000 foot elevation gradient. Following Pleistocene glaciation, modern vegetation has existed for about 3,000 years in this region. Our study populations are undisturbed, and current ecological conditions reflect their evolutionary context for thousands of generations, allowing us to relate present-day environmental data to historical natural selection and genetic divergence.