Abstract Detail

Ecophysiology

Fletcher, Leila [1], Scoffoni, Christine [2], Farrell, Colin [3], Buckley, Thomas N [4], Pellegrini, Matteo [5], Sack, Lawren [6].

Testing for a trade-off between relative growth rate and adaptation to climate across natural ecotypes of Arabidopsis.

Ecophysiologists have hypothesized intrinsic trade-offs across and within species between plant relative growth rate in high resource conditions (RGR) versus adaptation to tolerate stresses, including cold or arid climates, arising from trait-based mechanisms. Yet, our synthesis of the previous literature shows diverse relationships of RGR with cold or drought tolerance across species. Few studies considered ecotypes within a species, in which the lack of a trade-off would contribute to a wide species range and resilience to climate change. For 15 ecotypes of Arabidopsis thaliana in a common garden we tested for a trade-off between RGR versus adaptation to cold or dry native climates and assessed hypotheses for its mediation by 15 functional traits. Ecotypes native to warmer, drier climates had higher leaf density, leaf mass per area, root mass fraction, nitrogen per leaf area, and carbon isotope ratio, and lower osmotic potential at full turgor. RGR was statistically independent of the climate of the ecotype native range and of individual functional traits. The decoupling of RGR and cold or drought adaptation in Arabidopsis is consistent with multiple stress tolerance and avoidance mechanisms for ecotypic climate adaptation and would contribute to the species’ wide geographic range and resilience under climate change.

1 - Yale University, Yale School of the Environment, 315 Whitney Ave, 1B, New Haven, CT, 06511, USA
2 - California State University Los Angeles, Department of Biological Sciences, 5151 State University Drive, Los Angeles, CA, 90032, USA
3 - University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), Molecular, Cell & Developmental Biology, 3000C Terasaki Life Sciences Building, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, USA
4 - University of California, Davis, Department of Plant Sciences, 3025 Wickson, UC Davis, One Shields Ave, Davis, CA, 95616, USA
5 - University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), Molecular, Cell & Developmental Biology, 610 Charles E. Young Drive South, TLSB room 5146, Pellegrini Lab, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, USA
6 - 621 Charles E. Young Drive South, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States

Keywords:
arabidopsis
climate
relative growth rate
stress
trade-off
trait-environment relationship.

Presentation Type: Poster
Number: PPE006
Abstract ID:650
Candidate for Awards:None