Adaptive and inevitable morphological plasticity of three herbaceous species in a multi-species community: field experiment with manipulated nutrients and light

Abstract

Abstract The knowledge on plant species' morphological plasticity has mostly been gained in laboratory and greenhouse studies, and has hardly ever been verified in the field, where the interactive effects of light and nutrient availability operate in combination with biotic interactions. We studied morphological plasticity of shoot in three herbaceous species with different growth-forms and requirements – Hepatica nobilis, Lathyrus vernus, Sesleria caerulea – in a field experiment, established in an annually mown species-rich grassland. Above- and below-ground resource availability was manipulated by fertilization and additional illumination (using mirrors) in a two-factorial randomized design. The main hypothesis was that fertilization of the presumably non-light-limited grassland community would cause light deficit in the canopy, indicated by adaptive plastic responses in shade tolerant species and inevitable plastic responses in light-demanding species. Plants did not respond to additional illumination in non-fertilized plots, showing that the growth of the studied species in this grassland canopy is rather nutrient than light limited. The three species showed strikingly different patterns of response to manipulation of light availability in fertilized treatment. There, the shade-tolerant Hepatica showed an adaptive plasticity by adjusting its morphology to shadier conditions (e.g. by producing shorter petioles). The light-demanding Sesleria could not make use of the extra nutrients without the additional light resource (its growth being light limited in fertilized plots) and produced more shoot biomass and leaf area only with below-ground as well as above-ground resource addition (inevitable plastic response). In Lathyrus, only the main effects of fertilization and illumination were significant.