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Habitat-specific differences in plasticity of foliar ? (13)C in temperate steppe grasses.

ABSTRACT: A decrease in foliar ? (13)C with increasing precipitation is a common tendency in steppe plants. However, the rate of decrease has been reported to differ between different species or populations. We here hypothesized that plant populations in the same habitat of temperate steppes may not differ in foliar ? (13)C response patterns to precipitation, but could differ in the levels of plasticity of foliar ? (13)C across different habitats. In order to test this hypothesis, we conducted controlled watering experiments in northeast China at five sites along a west-east transect at latitude 44°N, which show substantial interannual fluctuations and intra-annual changes in precipitation among them. In 2001, watering treatment (six levels, three replicates) was assigned to 18 plots at each site. The responses of foliar ? (13)C to precipitation (i.e., the sum of watering and rainfall) were determined in populations of several grass species that were common across all sites. Although similar linear regression slopes were observed for populations of different species growing at the same site, significantly different slopes were obtained for populations of the same species growing at different sites. Further, the slope of the line progressively decreased from Site I to Site V for all species in this study. These results suggest habitat-specific differences in plasticity of foliar ? (13)C in temperate steppe grasses. This indicates that species' ? (13)C response to precipitation is conservative at the same site due to their long-term acclimation, but the mechanism responsible behind this needs further investigations.

SUBMITTER: Liu Y

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4098143 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Project description:Despite general agreement regarding the adaptive importance of plasticity, evidence for the role of environmental resource availability in plants is scarce. In arid and semi-arid environments, the persistence and dominance of perennial species depends on their capacity to tolerate drought: tolerance could be given on one extreme by fixed traits and, on the other, by plastic traits. To understand drought tolerance of species it is necessary to know the plasticity of their water economy-related traits, i.e. the position in the fixed-plastic continuum.Three conspicuous co-existing perennial grasses from a Patagonian steppe were grown under controlled conditions with four levels of steady-state water availability. Evaluated traits were divided into two groups. The first was associated with potential plant performance and correlated with fitness, and included above-ground biomass, total biomass, tillering and tiller density at harvest. The second group consisted of traits associated with mechanisms of plant adjustment to environmental changes and included root biomass, shoot/root ratio, tiller biomass, length of total elongated leaf, length of yellow tissue divided by time and ﬁnal length divided by the time taken to reach ﬁnal length.The most plastic species along this drought gradient was the most sensitive to drought, whereas the least plastic and slowest growing was the most tolerant. This negative relationship between tolerance and plasticity was true for fitness-related traits but was trait-dependent for underlying traits. Remarkably, the most tolerant species had the highest positive plasticity (i.e. opposite to the default response to stress) in an underlying trait, directly explaining its drought resistance: it increased absolute root biomass. The niche differentiation axis that allows the coexistence of species in this group of perennial dryland grasses, all limited by soil surface moisture, would be a functional one of fixed versus plastic responses.

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Habitat-specific differences in plasticity of foliar ? (13)C in temperate steppe grasses.

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