Strong but diverging clonality - climate relationships of different plant clades explain weak overall pattern across China.

ABSTRACT: The clonal strategy should be relatively important in stressful environments (i.e. of low resource availability or harsh climate), e.g. in cold habitats. However, our understanding of the distribution pattern of clonality along environmental gradients is still far from universal. The weakness and inconsistency of overall clonality-climate relationships across taxa, as reported in previous studies, may be due to different phylogenetic lineages having fundamental differences in functional traits other than clonality determining their climate response. Thus, in this study we compared the clonality-climate relationships along a latitudinal gradient within and between different lineages at several taxonomic levels, including four major angiosperm lineages (Magnoliidae, Monocotyledoneae, Superro

SUBMITTER: Ye D 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4887789 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature