| 1. |
- Auffret, Alistair G., et al.
(författare)
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More warm-adapted species in soil seed banks than in herb layer plant communities across Europe
- 2023
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Ingår i: Journal of Ecology. - : John Wiley & Sons. - 0022-0477 .- 1365-2745. ; 111:5, s. 1009-1020
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Responses to climate change have often been found to lag behind the rate of warming that has occurred. In addition to dispersal limitation potentially restricting spread at leading range margins, the persistence of species in new and unsuitable conditions is thought to be responsible for apparent time-lags. Soil seed banks can allow plant communities to temporarily buffer unsuitable environmental conditions, but their potential to slow responses to long-term climate change is largely unknown. As local forest cover can also buffer the effects of a warming climate, it is important to understand how seed banks might interact with land cover to mediate community responses to climate change. We first related species-level seed bank persistence and distribution-derived climatic niches for 840 plant species. We then used a database of plant community data from grasslands, forests and intermediate successional habitats from across Europe to investigate relationships between seed banks and their corresponding herb layers in 2763 plots in the context of climate and land cover. We found that species from warmer climates and with broader distributions are more likely to have a higher seed bank persistence, resulting in seed banks that are composed of species with warmer and broader climatic distributions than their corresponding herb layers. This was consistent across our climatic extent, with larger differences (seed banks from even warmer climates relative to vegetation) found in grasslands. Synthesis. Seed banks have been shown to buffer plant communities through periods of environmental variability, and in a period of climate change might be expected to contain species reflecting past, cooler conditions. Here, we show that persistent seed banks often contain species with relatively warm climatic niches and those with wide climatic ranges. Although these patterns may not be primarily driven by species’ climatic adaptations, the prominence of such species in seed banks might still facilitate climate-driven community shifts. Additionally, seed banks may be related to ongoing trends regarding the spread of widespread generalist species into natural habitats, while cool-associated species may be at risk from both short- and long-term climatic variability and change.
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| 2. |
- Flores, Olivier, et al.
(författare)
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An evolutionary perspective on leaf economics : phylogenetics of leaf mass per area in vascular plants
- 2014
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Ingår i: Ecology and Evolution. - : Wiley. - 2045-7758. ; 4:14, s. 2799-2811
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In plant leaves, resource use follows a trade-off between rapid resource capture and conservative storage. This worldwide leaf economics spectrum consists of a suite of intercorrelated leaf traits, among which leaf mass per area, LMA, is one of the most fundamental as it indicates the cost of leaf construction and light-interception borne by plants. We conducted a broad-scale analysis of the evolutionary history of LMA across a large dataset of 5401 vascular plant species. The phylogenetic signal in LMA displayed low but significant conservatism, that is, leaf economics tended to be more similar among close relatives than expected by chance alone. Models of trait evolution indicated that LMA evolved under weak stabilizing selection. Moreover, results suggest that different optimal phenotypes evolved among large clades within which extremes tended to be selected against. Conservatism in LMA was strongly related to growth form, as were selection intensity and phenotypic evolutionary rates: woody plants showed higher conservatism in relation to stronger stabilizing selection and lower evolutionary rates compared to herbaceous taxa. The evolutionary history of LMA thus paints different evolutionary trajectories of vascular plant species across clades, revealing the coordination of leaf trait evolution with growth forms in response to varying selection regimes.
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| 3. |
- Kattge, Jens, et al.
(författare)
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TRY plant trait database - enhanced coverage and open access
- 2020
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Ingår i: Global Change Biology. - : Wiley-Blackwell. - 1354-1013 .- 1365-2486. ; 26:1, s. 119-188
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Plant traits-the morphological, anatomical, physiological, biochemical and phenological characteristics of plants-determine how plants respond to environmental factors, affect other trophic levels, and influence ecosystem properties and their benefits and detriments to people. Plant trait data thus represent the basis for a vast area of research spanning from evolutionary biology, community and functional ecology, to biodiversity conservation, ecosystem and landscape management, restoration, biogeography and earth system modelling. Since its foundation in 2007, the TRY database of plant traits has grown continuously. It now provides unprecedented data coverage under an open access data policy and is the main plant trait database used by the research community worldwide. Increasingly, the TRY database also supports new frontiers of trait-based plant research, including the identification of data gaps and the subsequent mobilization or measurement of new data. To support this development, in this article we evaluate the extent of the trait data compiled in TRY and analyse emerging patterns of data coverage and representativeness. Best species coverage is achieved for categorical traits-almost complete coverage for 'plant growth form'. However, most traits relevant for ecology and vegetation modelling are characterized by continuous intraspecific variation and trait-environmental relationships. These traits have to be measured on individual plants in their respective environment. Despite unprecedented data coverage, we observe a humbling lack of completeness and representativeness of these continuous traits in many aspects. We, therefore, conclude that reducing data gaps and biases in the TRY database remains a key challenge and requires a coordinated approach to data mobilization and trait measurements. This can only be achieved in collaboration with other initiatives.
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| 4. |
- Plue, Jan, et al.
(författare)
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Buffering effects of soil seed banks on plant community composition in response to land use and climate
- 2020
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Ingår i: Global Ecology and Biogeography. - : Wiley. - 1466-822X .- 1466-8238. ; 30:1, s. 128-139
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- AimClimate and land use are key determinants of biodiversity, with past and ongoing changes posing serious threats to global ecosystems. Unlike most other organism groups, plant species can possess dormant life‐history stages such as soil seed banks, which may help plant communities to resist or at least postpone the detrimental impact of global changes. This study investigates the potential for soil seed banks to achieve this.Location Europe.Time period 1978–2014.Major taxa studied Flowering plantsMethodsUsing a space‐for‐time/warming approach, we study plant species richness and composition in the herb layer and the soil seed bank in 2,796 community plots from 54 datasets in managed grasslands, forests and intermediate, successional habitats across a climate gradient.ResultsSoil seed banks held more species than the herb layer, being compositionally similar across habitats. Species richness was lower in forests and successional habitats compared to grasslands, with annual temperature range more important than mean annual temperature for determining richness. Climate and land‐use effects were generally less pronounced when plant community richness included seed bank species richness, while there was no clear effect of land use and climate on compositional similarity between the seed bank and the herb layer.Main conclusionsHigh seed bank diversity and compositional similarity between the herb layer and seed bank plant communities may provide a potentially important functional buffer against the impact of ongoing environmental changes on plant communities. This capacity could, however, be threatened by climate warming. Dormant life‐history stages can therefore be important sources of diversity in changing environments, potentially underpinning already observed time‐lags in plant community responses to global change. However, as soil seed banks themselves appear, albeit less, vulnerable to the same changes, their potential to buffer change can only be temporary, and major community shifts may still be expected.
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| 5. |
- Plue, Jan, et al.
(författare)
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European soil seed bank communities across a climate and land-cover gradient
- 2020
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Annan publikationabstract
- This is the data set used for the publication Buffering effects of soil seed banks on plant community composition in response to land use and climate, published in the journal Global Ecology and Biogeography.Aim.Climate and land use are key determinants of biodiversity, with past and ongoing changes posing serious threats to global ecosystems. Unlike most other organism groups, plant species can possess dormant life-history stages such as soil seed banks, which may help plant communities to resist or at least postpone the detrimental impact of global changes. This study investigates the potential for soil seed banks to achieve this.Location. EuropeTime period. 1978 – 2014Major taxa studied. Flowering plantsMethods.Using a space-for-time/warming approach, we study plant species richness and composition in the herb layer and the soil seed bank in 2796 community plots from 54 datasets in managed grasslands, forests and intermediate, successional habitats across a climate gradient.Results.Soil seed banks held more species than the herb layer, being compositionally similar across habitats. Species richness was lower in forests and successional habitats compared to grasslands, with annual temperature range more important than mean annual temperature for determining richness. Climate and land use effects were generally less pronounced when plant community richness included seed bank species richness, while there was no clear effect of land use and climate on compositional similarity between the seed bank and the herb layer.Main conclusions.High seed bank diversity and compositional similarity between the herb layer and seed bank plant communities may provide a potentially important functional buffer against the impact of ongoing environmental changes on plant communities. This capacity could, however, be threatened by climate warming. Dormant life-history stages can therefore be important sources of diversity in changing environments, potentially underpinning already observed time-lags in plant community responses to global change. However, as soil seed banks themselves appear, albeit less, vulnerable to the same changes, their potential to buffer change can only be temporary, and major community shifts may still be expected.MethodsThis dataset is a collection of 41 published and 5 unpublished data sets, consisting of 2796 plots with corresponding seed bank and herb layer community data. Sampling effort varied across data sets, but involved sampling of the soil and subsequent germination trials in a greenhouse to determine seed bank composition. Herb layer communities were determined by the identification of plants in relevés. Please consult the readme file and published paper for further details.Usage NotesPlease contact database or individual data set authors for further information and collaboration when using the data set or any of its component parts. Please also note that some of these data sets have already been published alongside their orginal papers. Finally, please cite data and datasets according to community standards.
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