Contrasting patterns of taxonomic, phylogenetic and functional variation along a Costa Rican altitudinal gradient in the plant family Melastomataceae

Kandlikar, Gaurav S.; Vaz, Marcel C.; Kriebel, Ricardo; Vargas, G German; Michelangeli, Fabián A.; Cordero, Roberto J.; Almeda, Frank; Ávalos, Gerardo; Fetcher, Ned; Kraft, Nathan J. B.

doi:10.1017/s0266467418000172

Cited by 6 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…Environmental factors, including site temperature, vegetation type, and site fertilization, also contributed to variation. For most of the species that we studied, leaf toughness declined with increasing site temperature, which is consistent with the findings of Onoda et al (2011) and Kandlikar et al (2018). But leaf toughness of E. vaginatum and R. chamaemorus increased with site temperature.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 88%

Interspecific and intraspecific variation in leaf toughness of Arctic plants in relation to habitat and nutrient supply

et al. 2022

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Leaf toughness is an important functional trait that confers resistance to herbivory and mechanical damage. We sought to determine how species composition, climate, seasonality, and nutrient availability influence leaf toughness in two types of tundra in northern Alaska. We measured leaf toughness as force to punch for 11 species of Arctic plants in tussock tundra and dry heath tundra at 17 sites distributed along a latitudinal gradient. Rubus chamaemorus and the graminoids occupied opposite ends of the leaf toughness spectrum, with R. chamaemorus requiring the least force to punch, while one of the graminoids, Eriophorum vaginatum, required the most. Leaf toughness increased with mean summer temperature for E. vaginatum and Betula nana, while it declined with warmer temperatures for the other species. Toughness of mature leaves of E. vaginatum did not vary through the growing season but declined significantly after senescence. Application of N and P fertilizer in an experimental site decreased leaf toughness in three species but had no effect on four others. Leaf toughness of four out of five species in dry heath was greater than for the same species in tussock tundra, but there was no difference in community-weighted mean toughness between tussock tundra and dry heath.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 88%

Interspecific and intraspecific variation in leaf toughness of Arctic plants in relation to habitat and nutrient supply

et al. 2022

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“…Studies that combine form, function, and phylogenetics in tropical herbaceous species are exceedingly rare (e.g., Kandlikar et al, 2018), in spite of the fact that nearly half of the world's vascular plant species may be herbaceous (FitzJohn et al, 2014) and more than half are tropical (Barthlott et al, 1996). By pairing field observations with information on shared evolutionary history, we were able to determine that both environment and shared evolutionary history influence plant functional trait variation.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Climate and shared evolutionary history drive trait variation among species of Neotropical understory monocots

Ávila‐Lovera,

Vargas,

Funk

et al. 2024

Ecosphere

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Environmental variation commonly drives functional trait diversity within species, among species, and across communities. Climate and shared evolutionary history can both influence trait–environment relationships. We studied variation in plant functional traits among closely related Costus species occurring across environmental gradients, the extent to which this variation occurs within single species, and how that variation may be influenced by shared evolutionary history. We measured leaf, aboveground stem, rhizome, and fine root traits of 17 species of Costus in eight sites in Costa Rica and Panama, which varied in elevation, temperature, and precipitation. We then assessed the relationships among traits and environmental variables and estimated the phylogenetic signal of the traits. We observed significant relationships between functional traits and climate. Stomatal conductance decreased, but stem density and rhizome dry matter content increased with decreasing mean annual temperature and precipitation seasonality in both cross‐species and single‐species analyses. This suggests that herbaceous species have a similar trade‐off between plant hydraulic efficiency and safety as found in woody plants. Mean annual temperature was a stronger driver of trait variation than mean annual precipitation. We also found phylogenetic signal in leaf and stem structural traits (i.e., closely related species are more similar than distantly related species), but not in physiological or belowground traits. Our results demonstrate significant trait variation within and among species of Costus, a widespread understory and herbaceous genus in the tropics, which is driven by both climate and shared evolutionary history.

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“…In contrast, resource-poor conditions tend to favor species with traits such as low SLA, high tissue density, and longer leaf lifespan, which confer a slow return of investment but higher tolerance to abiotic stress such as drought (Chen et al, 2021;Krishna et al, 2021). Moreover, the shifts of trait values at the community scale are not invariably coherent and may not accurately represent shifts in functional traits and the performance or fitness of all species (Derroire et al, 2018;Kandlikar et al, 2018). Additionally, the modulation of functional traits and trait relationships by climate is surprisingly modest (Wright et al, 2004;Heilmeier, 2019).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evolutionary lability underlies drought adaptation of Australian shrubs along aridity gradients

Kandlikar²,

Vaz³

2022

Front. Plant Sci.

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Leaf drought tolerance traits influence plant survival in water deficit conditions, and these traits are influenced by both the plant’s evolutionary history and the environment in which the plant is currently growing. However, due to the substantial phenotypic plasticity in leaf traits, we still do not know to what degree variation in leaf traits is governed by species’ phylogenetic history or by their environment. To explore this question, we re-examined a drought tolerance dataset from 37 native Australian shrub species with varying climate origins growing in a common garden located in Melbourne, Australia. We previously measured seven leaf morphophysiological traits, and here, we estimated how phylogenetically conserved these traits are. We quantified phylogeny and the strength of correlation between the morphological traits and physiological traits before and after accounting for shared phylogenetic history. We also evaluated the relationship between species’ leaf traits and the climate of their native ranges. We present three main findings: (a) most leaf drought tolerance traits had weak phylogenetic signals, which is consistent with the convergent evolution of these traits. (b) There is weak but consistent coordination between distinct leaf drought tolerance traits, which can be masked due to species’ phylogenetic histories. (c) Leaf drought tolerance traits show strong correlations with the climate of species’ origins, and this relationship is only weakly impacted by phylogenetic signals. Therefore, the role of phylogeny on the coordination among leaf functional traits and their links to climate were limited. A better understanding of trait–environment relationships might be more pivotal than understanding the evolution of these traits for improving the predictions of species’ response to climate change–type drought, especially for shrub species that span substantial aridity gradients.

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Contrasting patterns of taxonomic, phylogenetic and functional variation along a Costa Rican altitudinal gradient in the plant family Melastomataceae

Cited by 6 publications

References 22 publications

Interspecific and intraspecific variation in leaf toughness of Arctic plants in relation to habitat and nutrient supply

Interspecific and intraspecific variation in leaf toughness of Arctic plants in relation to habitat and nutrient supply

Climate and shared evolutionary history drive trait variation among species of Neotropical understory monocots

Evolutionary lability underlies drought adaptation of Australian shrubs along aridity gradients

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