Cavitation resistance appears to be genetic, making it useful as a predictor of drought resistance.
Tag - functional traits
Erin Zimmerman
Very fine roots act as renewed carbon sink in rewetted peatland forest
New study suggests that rewetting peatland forests could increase their climate change mitigation function.
Juniper Kiss
A new assessment of Madagascar’s Coffea species shows which traits reflect phylogenetic signal
Flowering phenology appears to have a strong genetic component, and may serve as a barrier to hybridization
Thirsty? Learn from the drought escape strategy of an invasive radish plant!
Some plants can “escape” drought stress by speeding up their life cycles, minimising water loss and allocating more resources to roots when water is available. Over half of the world’s worst weeds are annuals and occur...
Are a few, large seeds or many, small seeds a better strategy for a plant?
For the first time, estimates of comparative seed yield and number for over 800 annuals and their predictor equations have been produced and the ecological importance of these regenerative traits has been illustrated.
Can photosynthetic traits offer insight into the success of a widespread invasive grass?
Johnsongrass has been described as one of the world’s worst weeds, but what makes it so invasive?
William Salter
When weather becomes less predictable, so do reproductive traits
Both within a plant and within a population, trait variability increases with unpredictable precipitation.
Functional traits restrict plant community assembly at high elevations
Community structure is most likely regulated by both elevation and soil nitrogen availability.
It’s epigenetics after all! How environmentally-induced traits might support plant ecosystems
Diversity of parental environments could have comparable effects to genetic diversity in Arabidopsis.
Liam Elliott
Differences in Protea Traits Add up to Explain Differences in Fitness
It's the differences in individuals that make one Protea more successful than another.
Alex Assiry
Plants from different climates can react to drought in similar ways
How do plants react when circumstances change? One method can be to evolve a local adaptation. Another can be be phenotypic plasticity, changing the shape of the plant to tackle a local problem. Silvia Matesanz and...
Hybrids may succeed where invasive species fail as sea levels rise
Invasive species might suffer from a change in conditions in tidal areas, but their hybrid offspring may have genes to survive.
Alun Salt
Leaf:wood allometry and functional traits explain variation in growth rate of rainforest trees
Plant growth rates drive ecosystem productivity and are a central element of a species’ ecological strategy. For seedlings grown under controlled conditions, a large body of scientific literature has identified the...
Intraspecific variation in soy across the leaf economics spectrum
Leaf economics traits are central in understanding and predicting the effects of plant biodiversity on ecosystem functioning. Using soybean (Glycine max) – one of the world’s most widespread crops, Hayes et al. show...
