A critical challenge faced by ecologists today is developing a general framework for assessing how species will respond to projected shifts in climate. Ecological and genetic factors influencing short-term and long-term population dynamics such as population size, survival, fecundity and reproduction are processes that ultimately will define their adaptive potential to respond to variable environments. I have focused my research on understanding these ecological and genetic processes in natural populations of plant species, particularly the influence of gene flow patterns in the adaptive potential of patchily distributed species.