Patterns and origin of intraspecific functional variability in a tropical alpine species along an altitudinal gradient

Almeida, Juan Pablo; Montúfar, Rommel; Anthelme, Fabien

doi:10.1080/17550874.2012.702137

Cited by 22 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 65 publications

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“…By contrast, Almeida et al . () attributed the control of leaf N to soil N. Our analysis supports neither of these interpretations, but it is consistent with the conclusion by Dong et al () that area‐ and mass‐based leaf N content are primarily determined by M A and V cmax,25 – the latter optimally adjusted to the environment. We attribute the increase in N area with elevation to the combined effect of thicker leaves and faster V cmax,25 .…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

A theory of plant function helps to explain leaf‐trait and productivity responses to elevation

2020

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Several publications have examined leaf-trait and carbon-cycling shifts along an Amazon-Andes transect spanning 3.5 km in elevation and 16°C in mean annual temperature. Photosynthetic capacity was previously shown to increase as temperature declines with increasing elevation, counteracting enzyme-kinetic effects. Primary production declines, nonetheless, due to decreasing light availability. We aimed to predict leaf-trait and production gradients from first principles, using published data to test an emerging theory whereby photosynthetic traits and primary production depend on optimal acclimation and/or adaptation to environment.We re-analysed published data for 210 species at 25 sites, fitting linear relationships to elevation for both predicted and observed photosynthetic traits and primary production.Declining leaf-internal/ambient CO 2 ratio (v) and increasing carboxylation (V cmax ) and electron-transport (J max ) capacities with increasing elevation were predicted. Increases in leaf nitrogen content with elevation were explained by increasing V cmax and leaf mass-per-area. Leaf and soil phosphorus covaried, but after controlling for elevation, no nutrient metric accounted for any additional variance in photosynthetic traits. Primary production was predicted to decline with elevation.This analysis unifies leaf and ecosystem observations in a common theoretical framework. The insensitivity of primary production to temperature is shown to emerge as a consequence of the optimisation of photosynthetic traits.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

A theory of plant function helps to explain leaf‐trait and productivity responses to elevation

2020

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“…A recent review of nurse plant mechanisms on the global scale lends support to this view by evidencing a strong research gap on plant interactions in tropical (alpine) regions (Filazzola and Lortie, 2014). Only one study has been conducted in tropical alpine environments, supporting the general assumption that more competition will drive established communities, whereas more facilitation will drive the dynamics of upward-migrating communities (Almeida et al, 2013; Figure 4). Accordingly, although an overall pattern of decreasing facilitation with decreasing latitude seems apparent, there are insufficient empirical data to corroborate our third hypothesis that distinct variation in facilitation will be apparent at low and high latitudes under the effects of climate change.…”

Section: Facilitation and Climate Change Along Latitudinal Gradientsmentioning

confidence: 77%

Facilitation among plants in alpine environments in the face of climate change

2014

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While there is a large consensus that plant–plant interactions are a crucial component of the response of plant communities to the effects of climate change, available data remain scarce, particularly in alpine systems. This represents an important obstacle to making consistent predictions about the future of plant communities. Here, we review current knowledge on the effects of climate change on facilitation among alpine plant communities and propose directions for future research. In established alpine communities, while warming seemingly generates a net facilitation release, earlier snowmelt may increase facilitation. Some nurse plants are able to buffer microenvironmental changes in the long term and may ensure the persistence of other alpine plants through local migration events. For communities migrating to higher elevations, facilitation should play an important role in their reorganization because of the harsher environmental conditions. In particular, the absence of efficient nurse plants might slow down upward migration, possibly generating chains of extinction. Facilitation–climate change relationships are expected to shift along latitudinal gradients because (1) the magnitude of warming is predicted to vary along these gradients, and (2) alpine environments are significantly different at low vs. high latitudes. Data on these expected patterns are preliminary and thus need to be tested with further studies on facilitation among plants in alpine environments that have thus far not been considered. From a methodological standpoint, future studies will benefit from the spatial representation of the microclimatic environment of plants to predict their response to climate change. Moreover, the acquisition of long-term data on the dynamics of plant–plant interactions, either through permanent plots or chronosequences of glacial recession, may represent powerful approaches to clarify the relationship between plant interactions and climate change.

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“…2). We can thus expect D. campyloptera to play a major role in maintaining community trait-environment matching in the future if (1) the costs of plasticity or adaptation are low and (2) the strength of trait-environment relationships across space is indicative of likely trait responses to environmental change across time (Almeida et al 2012).…”

Section: Pathways To High or Low Relative Importance Of Itvmentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding context dependence in the contribution of intraspecific variation to community trait–environment matching

Lajoie

Vellend

2015

Ecology

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Intraspecific trait variation (ITV) plays a potentially important role in determining functional community composition across environmental gradients. However, the importance of ITV varies greatly among studies, and we lack a coherent understanding of the contexts under which to expect a high vs. low contribution of ITV to trait-environment matching among communities. Here we first elaborate a novel conceptual framework posing specific hypotheses and predictions about the environmental and ecological contexts underlying the contribution of ITV to community trait turnover. We then empirically test these predictions in understory herbaceous plant communities in a montane environment, for three functional traits (flowering phenology, specific leaf area, and height). We found that different components of trait variation mapped onto different environmental axes, specifically reporting a greater contribution of ITV along non-climatic axes (e.g., soil properties, light) than along the main climatic axis (i.e., elevation), as predicted by the hypothesis that phenotypic plasticity (a major source of ITV) is greatest in response to conditions varying at a small spatial scale. Based on a variant of the niche-variation hypothesis, we predicted that the importance of ITV would be greatest in the lowest-diversity portion of the elevational gradient (i.e., at high elevation), but this prediction was not supported. Finally, the generally strong intraspecific responses to the gradient observed across species did not necessarily give rise to a high contribution of ITV (or vice versa) given (1) an especially weak or strong response of a dominant species driving the community-level trend, (2) differences among species in the direction of trait-environment response cancelling out, or (3) relatively narrow portions of the gradient where individual species abundances were high enough to have an important impact on community-level trait means. Our research identifies contexts in which we can predict that local adaptation and phenotypic plasticity will play a relatively large role in mediating community-level trait responses to environmental change.

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Patterns and origin of intraspecific functional variability in a tropical alpine species along an altitudinal gradient

Cited by 22 publications

References 65 publications

A theory of plant function helps to explain leaf‐trait and productivity responses to elevation

A theory of plant function helps to explain leaf‐trait and productivity responses to elevation

Facilitation among plants in alpine environments in the face of climate change

Understanding context dependence in the contribution of intraspecific variation to community trait–environment matching

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