Abstract
Abstract We examined how plant traits related to growth and resource use have evolved during hybrid speciation and specialization into stressful habitats. Two desert sunflower species of homoploid hybrid origin are endemic to habitats with lower soil nutrient levels than those of their ancestral parent species. We hypothesized that the hybrid species would exhibit greater tolerance to low levels of soil nutrients than their parental species. The 2 hybrid species, Helianthus anomalus and H. deserticola, and their parental species, H. annuus and H. petiolaris, were compared for plant traits and growth through reproduction under 3 nutrient levels in a greenhouse study. An additional seedling study compared species for maximum seedling relative growth rate under optimum conditions. The hybrid species did have greater tolerance of nutrient limitation than the parental species, demonstrated by a resistance to change in stem height and diameter growth across treatments. A similar trend was observed in total biom...
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