| 21. |
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| 22. |
- Fogelström, Elsa, et al.
(författare)
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Plant-herbivore synchrony and selection on plant flowering phenology
- 2017
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Ingår i: Ecology. - : Wiley. - 0012-9658 .- 1939-9170. ; 98:3, s. 703-711
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Temporal variation in natural selection has profound effects on the evolutionary trajectories of populations. One potential source of variation in selection is that differences in thermal reaction norms and temperature influence the relative phenology of interacting species. We manipulated the phenology of the butterfly herbivore Anthocharis cardamines relative to genetically identical populations of its host plant, Cardamine pratensis, and examined the effects on butterfly preferences and selection acting on the host plant. We found that butterflies preferred plants at an intermediate flowering stage, regardless of the timing of butterfly flight relative to flowering onset of the population. Consequently, the probability that plant genotypes differing in timing of flowering should experience a butterfly attack depended strongly on relative phenology. These results suggest that differences in spring temperature influence the direction of herbivore-mediated selection on flowering phenology, and that climatic conditions can influence natural selection also when phenotypic preferences remain constant.
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| 23. |
- Fogelström, Elsa, 1986-
(författare)
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Plant phenology in seasonal environments
- 2019
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Phenology, or the seasonal timing life-history events such as emergence, reproduction and senescence will determine the outcome of interactions between plants and both abiotic and biotic aspects of the environment. Such timing is therefore of utmost importance for plants in seasonal environments. In this thesis, I first investigated the factors determining the start, end and length of the growing season for a perennial herb. Secondly, I estimated phenotypic selection on flowering time and investigated to which extent it corresponded to genotypic selection in a natural field setting. Thirdly, I estimated population differentiation in flowering time in a common garden and in the field. Lastly, I experimentally manipulated the synchrony of a perennial herb and its main herbivore to investigate the effects of herbivore phenological preference and plant-herbivore synchrony on the direction of selection on flowering time.I found that flowering individuals emerged earlier in spring than non-flowering individuals and that large individuals senesced later in autumn, suggesting that the length of the growing season is linked to individual condition and resource demands. Phenotypic selection favoured early-flowering individuals, but there was no genotypic selection. I found evidence for genetic population differentiation in flowering time in a common garden but not in the field. This suggests that, although flowering time has a genetic component, the observed variation in flowering time was mainly plastic under natural field conditions. Lastly, I show that constant herbivore preferences of plant phenology, in combination with environmentally driven variation in relative synchrony of the plant and the herbivore, leads to among-year variation in natural selection on flowering time. With this thesis, I contribute to identifying the factors affecting plant phenology as well as of the mechanisms shaping selection on flowering time in perennial plants. Such knowledge is essential for predicting species responses to climate change.
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| 24. |
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| 25. |
- Fogelström, Elsa, et al.
(författare)
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Spring and autumn phenology in an understory herb are uncorrelated and driven by different factors
- 2022
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Ingår i: American Journal of Botany. - : John Wiley & Sons. - 0002-9122 .- 1537-2197. ; 109:2, s. 226-236
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Premise Climate warming has altered the start and end of growing seasons in temperate regions. Ultimately, these changes occur at the individual level, but little is known about how previous seasonal life-history events, temperature, and plant-resource state simultaneously influence the spring and autumn phenology of plant individuals.Methods We studied the relationships between the timing of leaf-out and shoot senescence over 3 years in a natural population of the long-lived understory herb Lathyrus vernus and investigated the effects of spring temperature, plant size, reproductive status, and grazing on spring and autumn phenology.Results The timing of leaf-out and senescence were consistent within individuals among years. Leaf-out and senescence were not correlated with each other within years. Larger plants leafed out and senesced later, and size had no effect on growing season length. Reproductive plants leafed out earlier and had longer growing seasons than nonreproductive plants. Grazing had no detectable effects on phenology. Colder spring temperatures delayed senescence in two of three study years.Conclusions The timing of seasonal events, such as leaf-out and senescence in plants can be expressed largely independently within and among seasons and are influenced by different factors. Growing season start and length can often be dependent on plant condition and reproductive status. Knowledge about the drivers of growing season length of individuals is essential to more accurately predict species and community responses to environmental variation.
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| 26. |
- Garcia, Maria B., et al.
(författare)
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No evidence of senescence in a 300-year-old mountain herb
- 2011
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Ingår i: Journal of Ecology. - : Wiley. - 0022-0477 .- 1365-2745. ; 99:6, s. 1424-1430
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- 1. Understanding how vital rates and reproductive value change with age is fundamental to demography, life history evolution and population genetics. The universality of organism senescence has been questioned on both theoretical and empirical grounds, and the prevalence and strength of senescence remain a controversial issue. Plants are particularly interesting for studies of senescence since individuals of many species have been reported to reach very high ages. 2. In this study, we examined whether the herb Borderea pyrenaica, known to reach ages of more than 300 years, experiences senescence. We collected detailed demographic information from male and female individuals in two populations over 5 years. An unusual morphological feature in this species enabled us to obtain exact age estimates for each of the individuals at the end of the demographic study. 3. We used restricted cubic regression splines and generalized linear models to determine nonlinear effects of age and size on vital rates. We then incorporated the effects of age and size in integral projection models of demography for determining the relationship between age and reproductive value. As the species is dioecious, we performed analyses separately for males and females and examined also the hypothesis that a larger reproductive effort in females comes at a senescence cost. 4. We found no evidence for senescence. Recorded individuals reached 260 years, but growth and fecundity of female and male individuals did not decrease at high ages, and survival and reproductive value increased with age. The results were qualitatively similar also when accounting for size and among-individual vital rate heterogeneity, with the exception that male flowering probability decreased with age when accounting for size increases. 5. Synthesis. Overall, our results show that performance of both male and female plants of B. pyrenaica may increase rather than decrease at ages up to several centuries, and they support the notion that senescence may be negligible in long-lived modular organisms. This highlights the need to explore mechanisms that enable some species to maintain high reproductive values also at very high ages and to identify the evolutionary reasons why some organisms appear to experience no or negligible senescence.
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| 27. |
- Hambäck, Peter A., et al.
(författare)
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Plant trait-mediated interactions between early and late herbivores on common figwort (Scrophularia nodosa) and effects on plant seed set
- 2011
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Ingår i: Ecoscience. - : Informa UK Limited. - 1195-6860 .- 2376-7626. ; 18:4, s. 375-381
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This study examined the interactive effects of early and late season herbivory on the growth and reproductive output of figwort (Scrophularia nodosa). The early season herbivore is a pentatomid bug that feeds on and kills the apical meristem, while the late season herbivores are 2 weevil species and a sawfly that all feed on leaves and flowers. The direct effect of early season meristem damage on plant reproduction was quite limited, although meristem damage did cause increased branching. This change in plant morphology may entail that early season herbivores have profound indirect effects on plant reproduction by affecting the abundance of and damage caused by late season herbivores. Comparisons of plants with and without early season meristem damage, natural and artificial, also suggest that plants with meristem damage are significantly shorter throughout most of the summer and receive less damage late in season. However, the reduced damage translated to increased flowering but not to increased fruit production, suggesting that the plants were able to compensate for late season damage. In the end, and despite damage, figwort was well able to tolerate the observed meristem and leaf damage.
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| 28. |
- Jones, Owen R., et al.
(författare)
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Diversity of ageing across the tree of life
- 2014
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Ingår i: Nature. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0028-0836 .- 1476-4687. ; 505:7482, s. 169-
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Evolution drives, and is driven by, demography. A genotype moulds its phenotype's age patterns of mortality and fertility in an environment; these two patterns in turn determine the genotype's fitness in that environment. Hence, to understand the evolution of ageing, age patterns of mortality and reproduction need to be compared for species across the tree of life. However, few studies have done so and only for a limited range of taxa. Here we contrast standardized patterns over age for 11 mammals, 12 other vertebrates, 10 invertebrates, 12 vascular plants and a green alga. Although it has been predicted that evolution should inevitably lead to increasing mortality and declining fertility with age after maturity, there is great variation among these species, including increasing, constant, decreasing, humped and bowed trajectories for both long-and short-lived species. This diversity challenges theoreticians to develop broader perspectives on the evolution of ageing and empiricists to study the demography of more species.
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| 29. |
- Kolb, Annette, et al.
(författare)
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Population size affects vital rates but not population growth rate of a perennial plant
- 2010
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Ingår i: Ecology. - 0012-9658 .- 1939-9170. ; 91:11, s. 3210-3217
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Negative effects of habitat fragmentation on individual performance have been widely documented, but relatively little is known about how simultaneous effects on multiple vital rates translate into effects on population viability in long-lived species. In this study, we examined relationships between population size, individual growth, survival and reproduction, and population growth rate in the perennial plant Phyteuma spicatum. Population size positively affected the growth of seedlings, the survival of juveniles, the proportion of adults flowering, and potential seed production. Analyses with integral projection models, however, showed no relationship between population size and population growth rate. This was due to the fact that herbivores and pathogens eliminated the relationship between population size and seed production, and that population growth rate was not sensitive to changes in the vital rates that varied with population size. We conclude that effects of population size on vital rates must not translate into effects on population growth rate, and that populations of long-lived organisms may partly be able to buffer negative effects of small population size on vital rates that have a relatively small influence on population growth rate. Our study illustrates that we need to be cautious when assessing the consequences of habitat fragmentation for population viability based on effects on only one or a few vital rates.
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| 30. |
- Lehtilä, Kari, et al.
(författare)
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Forest succession and population viability of grassland plants : long repayment of extinction debt in Primula veris
- 2016
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Ingår i: Oecologia. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0029-8549 .- 1432-1939. ; 181:1, s. 125-135
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Time lags in responses of organisms to deteriorating environmental conditions delay population declines and extinctions. We examined how local processes at the population level contribute to extinction debt, and how cycles of habitat deterioration and recovery may delay extinction. We carried out a demographic analysis of the fate of the grassland perennial Primula veris after the cessation of grassland management, where we used either a unidirectional succession model for forest habitat or a rotation model with a period of forest growth followed by a clear-cut and a new successional cycle. The simulations indicated that P. veris populations may have an extinction time of decades to centuries after a detrimental management change. A survey of the current incidence and abundance of P. veris in sites with different histories of afforestation confirmed the simulation results of low extinction rates. P. veris had reduced incidence and abundance only at sites with at least 100 years of forest cover. Time to extinction in simulations was dependent on the duration of the periods with favourable and unfavourable conditions after management cessation, and the population sizes and growth rates in these periods. Our results thus suggest that the ability of a species to survive is a complex function of disturbance regimes, rates of successional change, and the demographic response to environmental changes. Detailed demographic studies over entire successional cycles are therefore essential to identify the environmental conditions that enable long-term persistence and to design management for species experiencing extinction debts.
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