High Phenotypic Plasticity in a Prominent Plant Invader along Altitudinal and Temperature Gradients

Abstract

Studies on plant growth and trait variation along environmental gradients can provide important information for identifying drivers of plant invasions and for deriving management strategies. We used seeds of the annual plant invader Ambrosia artemisiifolia L. (common ragweed) collected from an agricultural site in Northern Italy (226 m. a.s.l; Mean Annual Air Temperature: 12.9 °C; precipitations: 930 mm) to determine variation in growth trajectories and plant traits when grown along a 1000-m altitudinal gradient in Northern Italy, and under different temperature conditions in the growth chamber (from 14/18 °C to 26/30 °C, night/day), using a non-liner modeling approach. Under field conditions, traits related to plant height (maximum height, stem height, number of internodes) followed a three-parameter logistic curve. In contrast, leaf traits (lateral spread, number of leaves, leaf length and width) followed non-monotonic double-Richards curves that captured the decline patterns evident in the data. Plants grew faster, reaching a higher maximum plant height, and produced more biomass when grown at intermediate elevations. Under laboratory conditions, plants exhibited the same general growth trajectory of field conditions. However, leaf width did not show the recession after the maximum value shown by plants grown in the field, although the growth trajectories of some individuals, particularly those grown at 18 °C, showed a decline at late times. In addition, the plants grown at lower temperatures exhibited the highest value of biomass and preserved reproductive performances (e.g., amount of male inflorescence, pollen weight). From our findings, common ragweed exhibits a high phenotypic plasticity of vegetative and reproductive traits in response to different altitudes and temperature conditions. Under climate warming, this plasticity may facilitate the shift of the species towards higher elevation, but also the in situ resistance and (pre)adaptation of populations currently abundant at low elevations in the invasive European range. Such results may be also relevant for projecting the species management such as the impact by possible biocontrol agents.

Population Analysis of Diospyros lotus in the Northwestern Caucasus Based on Leaf Morphology and Multilocus DNA Markers

“…The adaptation of plant species to colder environment is believed to be due to phenotypic plasticity or adaptive evolution [7,8]. Phenotypic plasticity allows plants to adapt to the new specific environment [9][10][11][12][13] and it is an underexplored topic, although its understanding is crucial for predicting plant behavior in future climatic scenarios [13][14][15][16]. Comprehensive information on longitudinal patterns of morphological trait variation is very meaningful for exploring morphological diversity and evolutionary trends [12,17].…”

High-performing plastic clones best explain the spread of yellow monkeyflower from lowland to higher elevation areas in New Zealand

“…For example, under stressful conditions, clonal plants tend to increase internode length and have longer leaves (van Kleunen et al, 2000), enabling more efficient foraging. Given the diverse habitats frequently encountered by introduced plants as they expand their range, and that plasticity can facilitate adaptation by providing a short-term rapid response to new environments (Fox et al, 2019;Radersma et al, 2020), it would seem that adaptive plasticity should contribute to the success of invasive alien plants (Baker, 1965;Geng et al, 2007;Gentili et al, 2021;Pichancourt & Van Klinken, 2012), at least in the short term (Fox et al, 2019;Radersma et al, 2020). However, this is not necessarily the case (Eriksson & Rafajlović, 2022).…”

Staying in situ or shifting range under ongoing climate change: A case of an endemic herb in theHimalaya‐HengduanMountains across elevational gradients

“…Alpine plants usually face rapidly changing environmental conditions in terms of solar radiation, atmospheric pressure, temperature and showing regional morphological variation patterns (Aubin‐Horth & Renn, 2009). Plants cope with resource deficit by allocating biomass between vegetative growth and reproductive growth along increasing elevation to adapt to stressful environments (Gentili et al, 2021). Consistent with previous studies, our study revealed considerable morphological variation in terms of plant height, leaf shape and flower number in M. himalaica .…”

“…Faced with sudden climate changes, species with expansive plasticity may persist in new or stressful environments across different conditions (Bakhtiari et al, 2019). Plants at higher elevations usually allocate resources by trading off vegetative and reproductive growth; transplanting and physiological experiments along the elevations are mainly employed to explore the magnitude of phenotypic plasticity (Gentili et al, 2021). Remarkable variation has been observed in plant size, leaf area, flower/seed size and sexual selection responding to precipitation or temperature change in alpine plants (Aubin‐Horth & Renn, 2009; de Villemereuil & Gaggiotti, 2015; Lopez‐Goldar & Agrawal, 2021).…”