Summer aridity rather than management shapes fitness-related functional traits of the threatened mountain plant Arnica montana.,Ecology and Evolution

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Summer aridity rather than management shapes fitness-related functional traits of the threatened mountain plant Arnica montana.
Ecology and Evolution ( IF 2.3 ) Pub Date : 2020-05-08 , DOI: 10.1002/ece3.6259
Nils Stanik ₁ , Christian Lampei ₂ , Gert Rosenthal ₁

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Semi‐natural mountain grasslands are increasingly exposed to environmental stress under climate change. However, which are the environmental factors that limit plants in these grasslands? Also, is the present management effective against these changes? Fitness‐related functional traits may offer a way to detect changes in performance and provide new insights into their vulnerability to climate change. We investigated changes in performance and variability of functional traits of the mountain grassland target species Arnica montana along a climate gradient in Central German low mountain ranges. This gradient represents at its lower end climate conditions that are expected at its upper end under future climate change. We measured vegetative, generative, and physiological traits to account for multiple ways of plant responses to the environment. Using mixed effects and multivariate models, we evaluated changes in trait values among individuals as well as the variability of their populations in order to assess performance under changing summer aridity and different management regimes. Fitness‐related performance of most traits showed strongly positive associations with reduced summer aridity at higher elevations, while only specific leaf area and leaf dry matter content showed no association. This suggests a higher performance level at less arid montane sites and that the physiological traits are less sensitive to this climate change factor. The coefficient of variation of almost all traits declined steadily with decreasing site aridity. We suggest that this reduced variability indicates a lower environmental stress level for A. montana toward its environmental optimum at montane elevations, especially because the trait performance increased simultaneously. Surprisingly, management factors and habitat characteristics had only low influence on both trait performance and variability. In summary, summer aridity had a stronger effect to shape the trait performance and variability of A. montana under increased environmental stress than management and other habitat characteristics.

中文翻译：

夏季干旱而不是管理塑造了受威胁的山地植物山金车蒙大拿与健康相关的功能特征。

在气候变化的背景下，半自然山地草原越来越受到环境压力的影响。然而，限制这些草原植物生长的环境因素有哪些呢？另外，目前的管理层是否能有效应对这些变化？与健康相关的功能特征可能提供一种检测表现变化的方法，并为他们对气候变化的脆弱性提供新的见解。我们研究了山地草原目标物种山金车蒙大拿沿着德国中部低山脉气候梯度的性能变化和功能性状的变化。该梯度代表了未来气候变化下预期的上限气候条件。我们测量了植物的营养、生殖和生理特征，以解释植物对环境的多种反应方式。使用混合效应和多变量模型，我们评估了个体性状值的变化及其种群的变异性，以便评估在不断变化的夏季干旱和不同管理制度下的表现。大多数性状的健康相关表现与高海拔地区夏季干旱的减少呈强烈正相关，而只有特定叶面积和叶片干物质含量没有显示出相关性。这表明在不太干旱的山地地区具有更高的性能水平，并且生理特征对这种气候变化因素不太敏感。随着场地干旱度的降低，几乎所有性状的变异系数都稳步下降。我们认为，这种变异性的降低表明A.的环境压力水平较低。蒙大拿州朝着山地海拔的环境最佳状态迈进，特别是因为性状表现同时增加。令人惊讶的是，管理因素和栖息地特征对性状表现和变异性的影响很小。总之，在环境压力增加的情况下，夏季干旱对塑造蒙大拿州的性状表现和变异性的影响比管理和其他栖息地特征的影响更大。

更新日期：2020-05-08

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