Seedling Stage Strategies as a Means of Habitat Specialization in Herbaceous Plants 英文参考文献.docVIP

SeedlingStageStrategiesasaMeansofHabitat SpecializationinHerbaceousPlants Dirk-JantenBrink1*¤,HansHenrikBruun2 1BiodiversityGroup, Department ofBiology, LundUniversity,Lund, Sweden, 2CenterforMacroecology, Evolution and Climate,Department ofBiology,University of Copenhagen,Copenhagen,Denmark Abstract Theregenerationnichehasbeenlittleinvestigatedinstudiesofcommunityassemblyandplantdistribution.Weexamined adaptive associations between seedling traits and habitat specialization. Two habitat contrasts were investigated across severalevolutionarylineagesofangiosperms:speciesspecializedtoforestvs.openhabitatsandtodryvs.wethabitats.We also tested whether effects of shade and drought vary independently or, alternatively, if shade may amplify effects on drought-stressedplants.Seedlingresponseintermsofgrowthrate,height,slenderness,specificleafarea(SLA)anddegree of elongation (longest internode; petiole or leaf-sheath depending on species’ morphology) to light and watering treatmentswasassessed.Weusedafactorialdesigninvolvingthreelightregimesandtwowateringfrequencies.Theopen- shadedhabitatcontrastandthedry-wethabitatcontrastwereinvestigatedusingsixandfivepairsofcongenericspecies, respectively. The congeneric species pair design controlled for confounding effects of evolutionary history prior to divergenceinhabitatspecialization.Seedlinggrowthrategenerallydecreasedwithshadeandreducedwateringfrequency. Plant height was generally largest at intermediate light. Specialization to shaded habitats was associated with a more conservativegrowthstrategy,i.e.showingamoremodestgrowthresponsetoincreasinglight.Species fromallhabitats showed the highest relative elongation at intermediate light, except for the moist-habitat species, for which elongation increasedwithshade.Contrarytoourexpectations,speciesfromdryhabitatsgrewbiggerthanspeciesfrommoisthabitats inalltreatments. SLAresponded tothelighttreatment,butnot towatering regime.Thecontrasting lightandmoisture conditionsacro