Heritability of growth and leaf loss compensation in a long-lived tropical understorey palm
Por:
Jansen M., Zuidema P.A., van Ast A., Bongers F., Malosetti M., Martínez-Ramos M., Nunez-Farfan, Juan, Anten, Niels P. R.
Publicada:
2 may 2019
Categoría:
Multidisciplinary
Resumen:
Introduction
Defoliation and light competition are ubiquitous stressors that can
strongly limit plant performance. Tolerance to defoliation is often
associated with compensatory growth, which could be positively or
negatively related to plant growth. Genetic variation in growth,
tolerance and compensation, in turn, plays an important role in the
evolutionary adaptation of plants to changing disturbance regimes but
this issue has been poorly investigated for long-lived woody species. We
quantified genetic variation in plant growth and growth parameters,
tolerance to defoliation and compensation for a population of the
understorey palm Chamaedorea elegans. In addition, we evaluated genetic
correlations between growth and tolerance/compensation.
Methods
We performed a greenhouse experiment with 711 seedlings from 43 families
with twelve or more individuals of C. elegans. Seeds were collected in
southeast Mexico within a 0.7 ha natural forest area. A two-third
defoliation treatment ( repeated every two months) was applied to half
of the individuals to simulate leaf loss. Compensatory responses in
specific leaf area, biomass allocation to leaves and growth per unit
leaf area were quantified using iterative growth models.
Results
We found that growth rate was highly heritable and that plants
compensated strongly for leaf loss. However, genetic variation in
tolerance, compensation, and the individual compensatory responses was
low. We found strong correlations between family mean growth rates in
control and defoliation treatments. We did not find indications for
growth-tolerance/compensation trade-offs: genetic correlation between
tolerance/compensation and growth rate were not significant.
Implications
The high genetic variation in growth rate, but low genetic variation in
tolerance and compensation observed here suggest high ability to adapt
to changes in environment that require different growth rates, but a low
potential for evolutionary adaptation to changes in damage or herbivory.
The strong correlations between family mean growth rates in control and
defoliation treatments suggest that performance differences among
families are also maintained under stress of disturbance.
Filiaciones:
Jansen M.:
Wageningen Univ, Forest Ecol & Forest Management, Wageningen, Netherlands
Wageningen Univ, Ctr Crop Syst Anal, Wageningen, Netherlands
Univ Nacl Autonoma Mexico, IIES, Morelia, Michoacan, Mexico
Swiss Fed Inst Technol, Ecosyst Management, Zurich, Switzerland
Forest Ecology and Forest Management, Wageningen University, Wageningen, Netherlands
Centre for Crop Systems Analysis, Wageningen University, Wageningen, Netherlands
Instituto de Investigaciones en Ecosistemas y Sustentabilidad (IIES), Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), Morelia, Michoacán, Mexico
Ecosystem Management, ETH Zürich, Switzerland
Zuidema P.A.:
Wageningen Univ, Forest Ecol & Forest Management, Wageningen, Netherlands
Forest Ecology and Forest Management, Wageningen University, Wageningen, Netherlands
van Ast A.:
Wageningen Univ, Ctr Crop Syst Anal, Wageningen, Netherlands
Centre for Crop Systems Analysis, Wageningen University, Wageningen, Netherlands
Bongers F.:
Wageningen Univ, Forest Ecol & Forest Management, Wageningen, Netherlands
Forest Ecology and Forest Management, Wageningen University, Wageningen, Netherlands
Malosetti M.:
Wageningen Univ, Biometris Appl Stat, Wageningen, Netherlands
Biometris – Applied Statistics, Wageningen University, Wageningen, Netherlands
Martínez-Ramos M.:
Univ Nacl Autonoma Mexico, IIES, Morelia, Michoacan, Mexico
Instituto de Investigaciones en Ecosistemas y Sustentabilidad (IIES), Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), Morelia, Michoacán, Mexico
Nunez-Farfan, Juan:
Univ Nacl Autonoma Mexico, Inst Ecol, Dept Ecol Evolut, Mexico City, DF, Mexico
Anten, Niels P. R.:
Wageningen Univ, Ctr Crop Syst Anal, Wageningen, Netherlands
Departamento de Ecología Evolutiva, Instituto de Ecología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, México, Mexico
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