Spitzer, Clydecia
- Department of Forest Ecology and Management, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
Abstract
Elevational gradients are useful for predicting how plant communities respond to global warming, because communities at lower elevations experience warmer temperatures. Fine root traits and root trait variation could play an important role in determining plant community responses to warming in cold-climate ecosystems where a large proportion of plant biomass is allocated belowground. Here, we investigated the effects of elevation-associated temperature change on twelve chemical and morphological fine root traits of plant species and plant communities in a Swedish subarctic tundra. We also assessed the relative contributions of plant species turnover and intraspecific variation to the total amount of community-level root trait variation explained by elevation. Several root traits, both at the species and whole community levels, had significant linear or quadratic relationships with elevation, but the direction and strength of these relationships varied among traits and plant species. Further, we found no support for a unidirectional change from more acquisitive root trait values at the lower elevations towards trait values associated with greater nutrient conservation at the higher elevations, either at the species or community level. On the other hand, root trait coefficients of variation at the community level increased with elevation for several root traits. Further, for a large proportion of the community-level traits we found that intraspecific variation was relatively more important than species turnover, meaning that trait plasticity is important for driving community-level trait responses to environmental factors in this tundra system. Our findings indicate that with progressing global warming, intraspecific trait variation may drive plant community composition but this may not necessarily lead to shifts in root resource-acquisition strategy for all species.
Keywords
arctic; community ecology; elevational gradient; root traits; trait variation; tundra
Published in
Oikos
2023, volume: 2023, number: 1, article number: e08903
Publisher: WILEY
SLU Authors
Sundqvist, Maja
- Department of Forest Ecology and Management, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
- Department of Forest Ecology and Management, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
Wardle, David
- Nanyang Technological University (NTU)
Gundale, Michael
- Department of Forest Ecology and Management, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
- Department of Forest Ecology and Management, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
Kardol, Paul
- Department of Forest Ecology and Management, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
- Department of Forest Ecology and Management, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
Global goals (SDG)
UKÄ Subject classification
Ecology
Publication identifier
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/oik.08903
Permanent link to this page (URI)
https://res.slu.se/id/publ/117155