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Testing the role of functional trait expression in plant–plant facilitation
Functional Ecology ( IF 4.6 ) Pub Date : 2020-09-14 , DOI: 10.1111/1365-2435.13681
Stephni van der Merwe 1 , Michelle Greve 1 , Bernard Olivier 1 , Peter C. le Roux 1
Affiliation  

  1. Positive biotic interactions between plant species may strongly affect species and community‐level patterns, but the processes through which benefactor species alter the performance of interacting species (via, e.g. beneficial mechanisms like resource provisioning) are still inadequately understood. One poorly explored potential explanation is that plant–plant facilitation could occur through the impact of benefactor species on the functional trait expression of beneficiary species. Indeed, plant species that affect local conditions can modify functional trait expression of interacting species, thereby improving their performance and resulting in a facilitative interaction. However, the response of intraspecific trait variation to biotically driven microhabitat modification, and its role in determining the outcome of plant–plant interactions, has rarely been explored.
  2. Here, we test whether growing with benefactor species affects the expression of functional traits of eight species, encompassing different plant growth forms, in two contrasting study systems. This is achieved using a paired sampling approach to compare values of seven functional traits of conspecific individuals growing within and adjacent to cushion plants (i.e. benefactor species which are known to strongly alter microhabitat conditions and to have positive effects on some of the focal species). In addition, we test whether the effect of biotic interactions on functional trait expression changes along elevational gradients, as the outcome of biotic interactions is expected to vary with elevation.
  3. Contrary to predictions, in both systems, intraspecific trait variation was not well explained by the biotic interaction with the cushion plant species or the variation in abiotic conditions associated with elevational gradients. Where biotic interactions did affect functional trait expression and bivariate trait relationships, traits responded variably between species, suggesting that context specificity may be a constraint to predicting how intraspecific trait variation responds to plant–plant interactions, adding to the growing body of literature that challenges the generality and predictability of the drivers of intraspecific trait variation.
  4. This research, therefore, suggests that benefactor species’ facilitative process is likely not through an impact on intraspecific trait expression, and that instead other processes may be more important for translating beneficial microhabitat modification or increased resource availability by benefactor species into positive impacts on beneficiary species.


中文翻译:

测试功能性状表达在植物促进植物中的作用

  1. 植物物种之间积极的生物相互作用可能会严重影响物种和社区一级的模式,但是,人们仍然不足以了解恩人物种改变相互作用物种性能的过程(例如,通过诸如资源供应等有益机制)。一个潜在的未充分探讨的解释是,通过受益人物种对受益物种的功能性状表达的影响,可以实现植物间的便利化。实际上,影响当地条件的植物物种可以修饰相互作用物种的功能性状表达,从而改善其性能并促进相互作用。然而,种内性状变异对生物驱动的微生境修饰的响应及其在决定植物间相互作用结果中的作用,
  2. 在这里,我们在两个不同的研究系统中测试了恩人物种的生长是否会影响包括不同植物生长形式的八个物种的功能性状的表达。这是通过使用成对采样方法比较在缓冲植物内部和附近生长的同种个体的七个功能性状的值(即,已知的能极大改变微生境条件并对某些焦点物种产生积极影响的恩施物种)来实现的。此外,我们测试了生物相互作用对功能性状表达的影响是否随海拔梯度变化,因为生物相互作用的结果预计会随海拔的升高而变化。
  3. 与预测相反,在这两个系统中,种内性状的变异不能很好地解释与垫层植物的生物相互作用或与海拔梯度相关的非生物条件的变异。在生物相互作用确实影响功能性状表达和双变量性状关系的地方,性状在物种之间的反应是可变的,这表明背景特异性可能是预测种内性状变异对植物-植物相互作用的反应的一种约束,这增加了越来越多的文献对植物的相互作用提出了挑战。种内性状变异驱动因素的普遍性和可预测性。
  4. 因此,这项研究表明,恩人物种的促进过程可能不会通过对种内性状表达的影响来实现,相反,其他过程对于将有益的微生境修饰或增加的资源利用度转化为对受益者物种的积极影响可能更为重要。 。
更新日期:2020-09-14
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