BRICCA, Alessandro, Marta Gaia SPERANDII, Alicia T. R. ACOSTA, Antonio MONTAGNOLI, Greta LA BELLA, Mattia TERZAGHI and Marta CARBONI. Above- and belowground traits along a stress gradient: trade-off or not? Oikos. HOBOKEN: WILEY, 2023, vol. 2023, No 9, p. "e010043", 12 pp. ISSN 0030-1299. Available from: https://dx.doi.org/10.1111/oik.10043.
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Basic information
Original name Above- and belowground traits along a stress gradient: trade-off or not?
Authors BRICCA, Alessandro (guarantor), Marta Gaia SPERANDII (380 Italy, belonging to the institution), Alicia T. R. ACOSTA, Antonio MONTAGNOLI, Greta LA BELLA, Mattia TERZAGHI and Marta CARBONI.
Edition Oikos, HOBOKEN, WILEY, 2023, 0030-1299.
Other information
Original language English
Type of outcome Article in a journal
Field of Study 10511 Environmental sciences
Country of publisher United States of America
Confidentiality degree is not subject to a state or trade secret
WWW URL
Impact factor Impact factor: 3.400 in 2022
RIV identification code RIV/00216224:14310/23:00132147
Organization unit Faculty of Science
Doi http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/oik.10043
UT WoS 001004636000001
Keywords in English belowground traits; coastal dunes; competition; habitat filtering; root traits; stress
Tags rivok
Tags International impact, Reviewed
Changed by Changed by: Mgr. Marie Šípková, DiS., učo 437722. Changed: 25/1/2024 10:42.
Abstract
The role of plant traits in shaping community assembly along environmental gradients is a topic of ongoing research. It is well accepted that plant traits of aboveground organs tend to be conservative in stressful conditions. However, there is limited understanding of how belowground traits respond. Plants may have similar strategies above and belowground, but an intriguing possibility is that there is a tradeoff between above and belowground traits of communities to both ensure efficient resource-use and limit niche overlap along the gradient. To test this, we asked whether the response of above and belowground traits of communities is coordinated or not along a stress gradient in Mediterranean sand dune communities. We analyzed 80 vegetation plots in central Italy to test for coordinated vs independent patterns in above vs belowground plant traits using community weighted mean and standardized effect size of functional richness. Our results show that plant communities close to the sea, which experience higher stress, were characterized by higher convergence towards aboveground resource conservation and conservative water-use strategies but belowground resource acquisition, consistent with a strong effect of habitat filtering and an above-belowground tradeoff favoring adaptation to harsh and dry conditions. At the opposite end of the gradient with lower stress, plants exhibited higher trait diversity for both above and belowground traits, but overall a dominance of aboveground fast resource acquisition and generally acquisitive water-use strategies, combined with conservative belowground strategies. This suggests that fast growth rate aboveground was compensated by more conservative fine-root strategies, but processes such as competition limited niche overlap overall. Our findings provide new insights into the relationship between functional traits and environmental gradients in plant communities, shedding light on the tradeoffs between the above and belowground dimensions.
Links
101090344, interní kód MUName: Assessing long-term trends in the vegetation of European habitats and evaluating the effectiveness of protected areas (Acronym: VegTrends)
Investor: European Union, Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowships (MSCA PF)
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