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Functional traits and their plasticity shift from tolerant to avoidant under extreme drought.
- Source :
-
Ecology [Ecology] 2022 Dec; Vol. 103 (12), pp. e3826. Date of Electronic Publication: 2022 Sep 19. - Publication Year :
- 2022
-
Abstract
- Under climate change, extreme droughts will limit water availability for plants. However, the species-specific responses make it difficult to draw general conclusions. We hypothesized that changes in species' abundance in response to extreme drought can be best explained by a set of water economic traits under ambient conditions in combination with the ability to adjust these traits towards higher drought resistance. We conducted a 4-year field experiment in temperate grasslands using rainout shelters with 30% and 50% rainfall reduction. We quantified the response as the change in species abundance between ambient conditions and the rainfall reduction. Abundance response to extreme drought was best explained by a combination of traits in ambient conditions and their functional adjustment, most likely reflecting plasticity. Smaller leaved species decreased less in abundance under drought. With increasing drought intensity, we observed a shift from drought tolerance, i.e., an increase in leaf dry matter content, to avoidance, i.e., a less negative turgor loss point (TLP) in ambient conditions and a constancy in TLP under drought. We stress the importance of using a multidimensional approach of variation in multiple traits and the importance of considering a range of drought intensities to improve predictions of species' response to climate change.<br /> (© 2022 The Authors. Ecology published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of The Ecological Society of America.)
- Subjects :
- Plant Leaves physiology
Water
Droughts
Climate Change
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 1939-9170
- Volume :
- 103
- Issue :
- 12
- Database :
- MEDLINE
- Journal :
- Ecology
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- 35857330
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1002/ecy.3826