Dataset Information

Distribution patterns of clonal plants in the subnival belt of the Hengduan Mountains, SW China.

ABSTRACT: Clonal reproduction (i.e., production of potentially independent offspring by vegetative growth) is thought to provide plants with reproductive assurance. Thus, studying the evolution of clonal reproduction in local floras is crucial for our understanding of the adaptive mechanisms plants deploy in stressful environments such as alpine regions. In this study, we characterized clonal plant species in the subnival belt of the Hengduan Mountains (a global biodiversity hotspot with extreme environmental conditions in southwest China), in order to determine the effects of sex system, growth form, and elevational distribution on clonality. We compiled clonality data of angiosperm species belonging to 41 families in the subnival belt of the Hengduan Mountains using published information. Of the 793 species recorded in the region, 47.92% (380 species) are clonal species. Both sex system and growth form had significant effects on the occurrence of clonal reproduction: unisexual species (79.79%) were more likely to be clonal than bisexual species (43.63%), and herbaceous species (51.04%) were more likely to be clonal than woody species (16.67%). Compared with non-alpine-endemic species (44.60%), alpine-endemic species (58.33%) showed a significantly higher proportion of clonal reproduction. Further logistic regression analysis showed a positive association between incidence of clonality and elevational range, indicating that species distributed at high elevations are more likely to be clonal. Furthermore, the elevational gradients in clonality were contingent on sex system or growth form. This study reveals that plants in the subnival belt of the Hengduan Mountains might optimize their probability of reproduction through clonal reproduction, a finding that adds to our growing understanding of plant's adaptations to harsh alpine environments.

SUBMITTER: Gao Y

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7584785 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Distribution patterns of clonal plants in the subnival belt of the Hengduan Mountains, SW China.

Gao Yongqian Y Zheng Jinxuan J Lin Xiangqun X Du Fan F

Plant diversity 20200718 5

Clonal reproduction (i.e., production of potentially independent offspring by vegetative growth) is thought to provide plants with reproductive assurance. Thus, studying the evolution of clonal reproduction in local floras is crucial for our understanding of the adaptive mechanisms plants deploy in stressful environments such as alpine regions. In this study, we characterized clonal plant species in the subnival belt of the Hengduan Mountains (a global biodiversity hotspot with extreme environme ...[more]

PMID: 33134623

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Project description:The recently described trait-based approach is becoming widely popular for a mechanistic understanding of species coexistence. However, the greatest challenge in functional analyses is decomposing the contributions of different ecological and evolutionary processes (e.g., niche-based process, neutral process, and evolutionary process) in determining trait structure. Taking rodents (Rodentia) in the Hengduan Mountains as our study model, we aim to (1) quantify the vertical patterns of functional structure for head-body length (HL), tail/body ratio (TR), animal component in diet (ACD), and all traits; (2) disentangle the relative importance of different assembly processes (environment, space, and phylogeny) in structuring trait dispersion; and (3) assess the feasibility of Bergmann's rule and Allen's rule along elevational gradient. Our results have suggested that the vertical functional structure pattern varied across these three traits, indicating distinct functional roles in the community assembly process. These nonrandom vertical patterns of HL, TR, and terminal ACD have demonstrated these traits were dominated by different ecological process along environmental gradient. In variance partitioning, high proportion of the spatial variations in trait dispersion was explained by environmental and spatial models, which have provided supporting strong evidence for niche-based and neutral processes in leading species coexistence. Although the three traits all exhibited apparent phylogenetic signals, phylogenetic relationship within community failed to predict the spatial variations of functional dispersion, confirming the enormous inference of phylogenetic signals in predicting trait structure. By assessing the vertical patterns of HL and TR at order and family levels, we argued that functional adaptation along an environmental gradient is a surrogate of series of complex processes (e.g., environmental filtering, interspecific interaction, and neutral dispersal) acting on multiple functional axes, which results in inconsistence with the empirical rules along elevational gradient.

Project description:Phtheirospermum (Orobanchaceae), a hemiparasitic genus of Eastern Asia, is characterized by having long and viscous glandular hairs on stems and leaves. Despite this unifying character, previous phylogenetic analyses indicate that Phtheirospermum is polyphyletic, with Phtheirospermum japonicum allied with tribe Pedicularideae and members of the Ph. tenuisectum complex allied with members of tribe Rhinantheae. However, no analyses to date have included broad phylogenetic sampling necessary to test the monophyly of Phtheirospermum species, and to place these species into the existing subfamiliar taxonomic organization of Orobanchaceae. Two other genera of uncertain phylogenetic placement are Brandisia and Pterygiella, also both of Eastern Asia. In this study, broadly sampled phylogenetic analyses of nrITS and plastid DNA revealed hard incongruence between these datasets in the placement of Brandisia. However, both nrITS and the plastid datasets supported the placement of Ph. japonicum within tribe Pedicularideae, and a separate clade consisting of the Ph. tenuisectum complex and a monophyletic Pterygiella. Analyses were largely in agreement that Pterygiella, the Ptheirospermum complex, and Xizangia form a clade not nested within any of the monophyletic tribes of Orobanchaceae recognized to date. Ph. japonicum, a model species for parasitic plant research, is widely distributed in Eastern Asia. Despite this broad distribution, both nrITS and plastid DNA regions from a wide sampling of this species showed high genetic identity, suggesting that the wide species range is likely due to a recent population expansion. The Ph. tenuisectum complex is mainly distributed in the Hengduan Mountains region. Two cryptic species were identified by both phylogenetic analyses and morphological characters. Relationships among species of the Ph. tenuisectum complex and Pterygiella remain uncertain. Estimated divergence ages of the Ph. tenuisectum complex corresponding to the last two uplifts of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau at around 8.0-7.0 Mya and 3.6-1.5 Mya indicated that the development of a hot-dry valley climate during these uplifts may have driven species diversification in the Ph. tenuisectum complex.

Dataset Information

Distribution patterns of clonal plants in the subnival belt of the Hengduan Mountains, SW China.

Publications

Distribution patterns of clonal plants in the subnival belt of the Hengduan Mountains, SW China.

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