The strategy of plants: It's all about balancing traits
Like each other being on the Earth, plants' eventual aim is to live and reproduce. In order to attain this, they must produced trade-offs between where and how to give out their finite set of resources. Whether they give their resources and energy into their growth, reproduction or also maintenance, that is whole part of their so known as "plant strategy". But with a latest framework, Ph.D. student Jianhong Zhou and her supervisors search that not whole of the currently known strategies shows a plant strategy in the real life.
Zhou from the Institute of Environmental Sciences says that- "Plant strategies are very necessary or important to, for example, forecast how plants answer to projected changes in future climates. However, to date, it remained unknown whether the methods we used to report plant strategies, reflected these strategies is reality. That has results for the models we use to see at the functioning of ecosystems. For example, models to forecast how well these ecosystems will function in a changing climate. Our novel framework Permit enhances these models and the projections they give".
What is Relationships between different traits
A method to fixed a plant's strategy is to see at trait-trait relationships. Traits are quality or character of an organism, such as weight or lifetime, and can be determine on individuals. The values of these traits can transfer around different individuals within a species, and they can also transfer around diverse species. When we conduct how the values of two of these traits relate to each other, you get the trait-trait relationship.
To this date, reserchers mostly looked at trait-trait relationships between different species. Zhou says that - "When we find a strong trait-trait relationship between species, we commonly consider it as a plant strategy. For example, there is a positive relationship between the leaf lifetime and the leaf weight per area of plants. This shows that plant species which produce leaves with a high mass per area, usually also contains leaves that last longer."
By the research of Zhou - this interesting relationship has been explain as a plant's strategy in which a species fund many resources in the building and growth of its leaves to make better use of them. That ways, the leaves will they last long enough to do competent photosynthesis.
There is Not always representing strategy
Reality represents that - however, it remains unclear whether a trait-trait relationship between species always shows plant strategy. Zhou said that - "A powerful trait-trait relationship between species could also be created common environmental drivers. The presence of water and nutrients namely introduce different traits. When, with th example, the nitrogen content in the soil increases it could affect leaf nitrogen content and specific leaf area independently, producing them arise. But that does not necessarily mean that these two traits are physiologically or eco-evolutionary linked. That way, the traits would be correlated by coincidence, without representing a strategy."
Zhou and her colleagues, therefore, came up with a new approach to differentiate between trait-trait relationships which shows plant strategies and those relationships due to a "coincidence." She also says that- We proposed a new framework. If a trait-trait relationship really shows a plant strategy, we would indicate to look the same trait-trait relationship within a species; so in that situation, we see at how the trait qualities transfer between different individuals of the same species. If a trait-trait relationship between species is created by coincidental drivers, we would not see that same powerful trait-trait relationship within species,"- also says Zhou. This was the situation for the former example of specific leaf area and leaf nitrogen.
More accurate predictions in times of climate change
Zhou says that- "This knowledge is mainly very necessary for making models that determines how ecosystems and the processes in these ecosystems will change in future climates. Due to the climate change, we might experience climate conditions that we have never seen before. This would naturally affect the environmental drivers we've talked about: two environmental drivers that are only related through surprisingly that, independently influence a plant trait.
Under several types of situations, the method in which they affect the plant trait might change. The coincidental trait-trait relationships created by these drivers, would then break down. That means our models, containing these relationships, would no longer make correct forecast. By determining which trait-trait relations this might be, our new way can address this problem.
