Dataset Information

Divergent variations in concentrations of chemical elements among shrub organs in a temperate desert.

ABSTRACT: Desert shrubs, a dominant component of desert ecosystems, need to maintain sufficient levels of nutrients in their different organs to ensure operation of various physiological functions for the purpose of survival and reproduction. In the present study, we analyzed 10 elements in leaves, stems, and roots of 24 dominant shrub species from 52 sites across a temperate desert ecosystem in northwestern China. We found that concentrations of all 10 elements were higher in leaves than in stems and roots, that non-legumes had higher levels of leaf Na and Mg than did legumes, and that Na was more concentrated in C4 leaves than in C3 leaves. Scaling relationships of elements between the photosynthetic organ (leaf) and non-photosynthetic organs (stem and root) were allometric. Results of principal components analysis (PCA) highlighted the important role of the elements responsible for osmoregulation (K and Na) in water utilization of desert shrubs. Soil properties and taxonomy explained most variation of element concentrations in desert shrubs. Desert shrubs may not be particularly susceptible to future change in climate factors, because most elements (including N, P, K, Ca, Mn, Zn, and Cu) associated with photosynthesis, osmoregulation, enzyme activity, and water use efficiency primarily depend on soil conditions.

SUBMITTER: He M

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4730183 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Divergent variations in concentrations of chemical elements among shrub organs in a temperate desert.

He Mingzhu M Song Xin X Tian Fuping F Zhang Ke K Zhang Zhishan Z Chen Ning N Li Xinrong X

Scientific reports 20160128

Desert shrubs, a dominant component of desert ecosystems, need to maintain sufficient levels of nutrients in their different organs to ensure operation of various physiological functions for the purpose of survival and reproduction. In the present study, we analyzed 10 elements in leaves, stems, and roots of 24 dominant shrub species from 52 sites across a temperate desert ecosystem in northwestern China. We found that concentrations of all 10 elements were higher in leaves than in stems and roo ...[more]

PMID: 26818575

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Project description:Abstract The climate in arid Central Asia (ACA) has changed rapidly in recent decades, but the ecological consequences of this are far from clear. To predict the impacts of climate change on ecosystem functioning, greater attention should be given to the relationships between leaf functional traits and environmental heterogeneity. As a dominant constructive shrub widely distributed in ACA, Reaumuria soongarica provided us with an ideal model to understand how leaf functional traits of desert ecosystems responded to the heterogeneous environments of ACA. Here, to determine the influences of genetic and ecological factors, we characterized species?wide variations in leaf traits among 30 wild populations of R. soongarica and 16 populations grown in a common garden. We found that the leaf length, width, and leaf length to width ratio (L/W) of the northern lineage were significantly larger than those of other genetic lineages, and principal component analysis based on the in situ environmental factors distinguished the northern lineage from the other lineages studied. With increasing latitude, leaf length, width, and L/W in the wild populations increased significantly. Leaf length and L/W were negatively correlated with altitude, and first increased and then decreased with increasing mean annual temperature (MAT) and mean annual precipitation (MAP). Stepwise regression analyses further indicated that leaf length variation was mainly affected by latitude. However, leaf width was uncorrelated with altitude, MAT, or MAP. The common garden trial showed that leaf width variation among the eastern populations was caused by both local adaptation and phenotypic plasticity. Our findings suggest that R. soongarica preferentially changes leaf length to adjust leaf size to cope with environmental change. We also reveal phenotypic evidence for ecological speciation of R. soongarica. These results will help us better understand and predict the consequences of climate change for desert ecosystem functioning. The variations in leaf size along environmental gradients within the species range of Reaumuria soongarica were investigated. Our study shows that there are significant differentiations of leaf size and environmental conditions between genetic lineages in this species. Leaf width variations in heterogeneous environments are partly affected by local adaptation and this shrub preferentially changes leaf length to adjust leaf size to cope with environmental change.

Project description:BackgroundArtemisia sphaerocephala, a semi-shrub belonging to the Artemisia genus of the Compositae family, is an important pioneer plant that inhabits moving and semi-stable sand dunes in the deserts and steppes of northwest and north-central China. It is very resilient in extreme environments. Additionally, its seeds have excellent nutritional value, and the abundant lipids and polysaccharides in the seeds make this plant a potential valuable source of bio-energy. However, partly due to the scarcity of genetic information, the genetic mechanisms controlling the traits and environmental adaptation capacity of A. sphaerocephala are unknown.ResultsHere, we present the first in-depth transcriptomic analysis of A. sphaerocephala. To maximize the representation of conditional transcripts, mRNA was obtained from 17 samples, including living tissues of desert-growing A. sphaerocephala, seeds germinated in the laboratory, and calli subjected to no stress (control) and high and low temperature, high and low osmotic, and salt stresses. De novo transcriptome assembly performed using an Illumina HiSeq 2500 platform resulted in the generation of 68,373 unigenes. We analyzed the key genes involved in the unsaturated fatty acid synthesis pathway and identified 26 A. sphaerocephala fad2 genes, which is the largest fad2 gene family reported to date. Furthermore, a set of genes responsible for resistance to extreme temperatures, salt, drought and a combination of stresses was identified.ConclusionThe present work provides abundant genomic information for functional dissection of the important traits of A. sphaerocephala and contributes to the current understanding of molecular adaptive mechanisms of A. sphaerocephala in the desert environment. Identification of the key genes in the unsaturated fatty acid synthesis pathway could increase understanding of the biological regulatory mechanisms of fatty acid composition traits in plants and facilitate genetic manipulation of the fatty acid composition of oil crops.

Project description:Preservation of desert ecosystems is a worldwide conservation priority. Shrubs can play a key role in the structure of desert communities and can function as foundation species. Understanding desert shrub ecology is therefore an important task in desert conservation. A useful model for the function of shrubs in deserts is ecological facilitation, which explores benefits that shrubs confer on their community. Facilitation has been well developed in the context of shrub-plant interactions but less well studied for plant-animal interactions. We used radiotelemetry to test the hypothesis that a dominant desert shrub facilitates one species of diurnal lizard. We hypothesized that the blunt-nosed leopard lizard Gambelia sila would spend some part of its daily activity cycle associated with California jointfir Ephedra californica, and that lizard association with shrubs would increase during the afternoon peak temperature period. We relocated lizards three times daily for 24 days and scored whether lizards were within 0.5 m of a shrub, which we used as an indicator of shrub association. For each relocation, we also scored lizard association with a set of predefined microhabitat features. We also scored lizard behavior according to a set of predefined behavioral traits. We constructed home ranges following the minimum convex polygon method and generated estimates of shrub density and relative shrub area within each home range polygon. We obtained 1,190 datapoints from a sample of 27 lizards. We found that lizards were associated with open sites significantly more often than with shrubs but were associated with shrubs more than predicted by percent shrub area within their home ranges. Lizards were associated significantly more often under shrubs during the afternoon peak temperature period, and lizards were observed cooling under shrubs significantly more often. The frequency of association of individual lizards with shrubs was not correlated with the density of shrubs within their home range. Synthesis and Applications. Shrubs can be considered as a component of high-quality habitat for ectothermic desert vertebrates for the purposes of restoration and management. Furthermore, radiotelemetry provides a novel methodological approach for assessing shrub-animal facilitative interactions within desert communities.

Dataset Information

Divergent variations in concentrations of chemical elements among shrub organs in a temperate desert.

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Divergent variations in concentrations of chemical elements among shrub organs in a temperate desert.

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