Abstract
In a rapidly changing climate, alpine plants may persist by adapting to new conditions. However, the rate at which the climate is changing might exceed the rate of adaptation through evolutionary processes in long-lived plants. Persistence may depend on phenotypic plasticity in morphology and physiology. Here we investigated patterns of leaf trait variation including leaf area, leaf thickness, specific leaf area, leaf dry matter content, leaf nutrients (C, N, P) and isotopes (δ13C and δ15N) across an elevation gradient on Gongga Mountain, Sichuan Province, China. We quantified inter- and intra-specific trait variation and the plasticity in leaf traits of selected species to experimental warming and cooling by using a reciprocal transplantation approach. We found substantial phenotypic plasticity in most functional traits where δ15N, leaf area, and leaf P showed greatest plasticity. These traits did not correspond with traits with the largest amount of intraspecific variation. Plasticity in leaf functional traits tended to enable plant populations to shift their trait values toward the mean values of a transplanted plants’ destination community, but only if that population started with very different trait values. These results suggest that leaf trait plasticity is an important mechanism for enabling plants to persist within communities and to better tolerate changing environmental conditions under climate change.
Highlights
Understanding and predicting how plants will respond to accelerating climate change is paramount for conservation and the maintenance of ecosystem function (Chapin et al, 2000; Davis et al, 2005)
The variance partitioning analysis shows that nitrogen-related leaf traits tended to have very high intraspecific variation with >75% of variation being found within species or sites (Figure 1)
Our results show that a variety of alpine species had substantial phenotypic plasticity, this plasticity was not necessarily related to intraspecific variation of these traits
Summary
Understanding and predicting how plants will respond to accelerating climate change is paramount for conservation and the maintenance of ecosystem function (Chapin et al, 2000; Davis et al, 2005). Intraspecific Variation and Phenotypic Plasticity a continuum from fast to slow photosynthetic and tissue turnover rates (Wright et al, 2004; Reich, 2014; Díaz et al, 2016). Traits like those included in the leaf economics spectrum should be related to a species ability to persist under changing conditions. Intraspecific trait variation can contribute approximately a quarter of the community trait variation in leaf and wood traits (Albert et al, 2010, 2012; Hulshof and Swenson, 2010; Jung et al, 2010; Messier et al, 2010; De Bello et al, 2011) This has attracted attention as a potentially key component of community assembly (Hart et al, 2016; Des Roches et al, 2017; Hausch et al, 2018)
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