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Yaffar D, Lugli LF, Wong MY, Norby RJ, Addo-Danso SD, Arnaud M, Cordeiro AL, Dietterich LH, Diaz-Toribio MH, Lee MY, Ghimire OP, Smith-Martin CM, Toro L, Andersen K, McCulloch LA, Meier IC, Powers JS, Sanchez-Julia M, Soper FM, Cusack DF. Tropical root responses to global changes: A synthesis. GLOBAL CHANGE BIOLOGY 2024; 30:e17420. [PMID: 39044411 DOI: 10.1111/gcb.17420] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/31/2023] [Revised: 05/02/2024] [Accepted: 06/03/2024] [Indexed: 07/25/2024]
Abstract
Tropical ecosystems face escalating global change. These shifts can disrupt tropical forests' carbon (C) balance and impact root dynamics. Since roots perform essential functions such as resource acquisition and tissue protection, root responses can inform about the strategies and vulnerabilities of ecosystems facing present and future global changes. However, root trait dynamics are poorly understood, especially in tropical ecosystems. We analyzed existing research on tropical root responses to key global change drivers: warming, drought, flooding, cyclones, nitrogen (N) deposition, elevated (e) CO2, and fires. Based on tree species- and community-level literature, we obtained 266 root trait observations from 93 studies across 24 tropical countries. We found differences in the proportion of root responsiveness to global change among different global change drivers but not among root categories. In particular, we observed that tropical root systems responded to warming and eCO2 by increasing root biomass in species-scale studies. Drought increased the root: shoot ratio with no change in root biomass, indicating a decline in aboveground biomass. Despite N deposition being the most studied global change driver, it had some of the most variable effects on root characteristics, with few predictable responses. Episodic disturbances such as cyclones, fires, and flooding consistently resulted in a change in root trait expressions, with cyclones and fires increasing root production, potentially due to shifts in plant community and nutrient inputs, while flooding changed plant regulatory metabolisms due to low oxygen conditions. The data available to date clearly show that tropical forest root characteristics and dynamics are responding to global change, although in ways that are not always predictable. This synthesis indicates the need for replicated studies across root characteristics at species and community scales under different global change factors.
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Affiliation(s)
- Daniela Yaffar
- Environmental Science Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, USA
- Functional Forest Ecology, University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany
| | - Laynara F Lugli
- School of Life Sciences, Technical University of Munich, Freising, Germany
| | - Michelle Y Wong
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, USA
- Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, Millbrook, New York, USA
| | - Richard J Norby
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee, USA
| | - Shalom D Addo-Danso
- Forest and Climate Change Division, CSIR-Forestry Research Institute of Ghana, Kumasi, Ghana
| | - Marie Arnaud
- Sorbonne Université, CNRS, INRAE, Institute of Ecology and Environmental Sciences (IEES), Paris, France
- School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK
| | - Amanda L Cordeiro
- Department of Ecosystem Science and Sustainability, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado, USA
| | - Lee H Dietterich
- Department of Ecosystem Science and Sustainability, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado, USA
- Department of Biology, Haverford College, Haverford, Pennsylvania, USA
| | - Milton H Diaz-Toribio
- Jardín Botánico Francisco Javier Clavijero, Instituto de Ecología, A.C. Xalapa, Veracruz, Mexico
| | - Ming Y Lee
- Asian School of the Environment, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore
| | - Om Prakash Ghimire
- Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences, Clemson University, Clemson, South Carolina, USA
| | - Chris M Smith-Martin
- Department of Plant and Microbial Biology, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, Minnesota, USA
| | - Laura Toro
- Department of Plant and Microbial Biology, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, Minnesota, USA
- Center for Conservation and Sustainable Development, Missouri Botanical Garden, St. Louis, Missouri, USA
| | - Kelly Andersen
- Department of Ecosystem Science and Sustainability, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado, USA
- Asian School of the Environment, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore
| | - Lindsay A McCulloch
- Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Balboa, Ancon, Republic of Panama
- Department of Integrative Biology, University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida, USA
| | - Ina C Meier
- Functional Forest Ecology, University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany
| | - Jennifer S Powers
- Department of Plant and Microbial Biology, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, Minnesota, USA
| | - Mareli Sanchez-Julia
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, USA
| | - Fiona M Soper
- Department of Biology and Bieler School of Environment, McGill University, Montreal, Qubec, Canada
| | - Daniela F Cusack
- Department of Ecosystem Science and Sustainability, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado, USA
- Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Balboa, Ancon, Republic of Panama
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Jiménez-Ramírez A, Solé-Medina A, Ramírez-Valiente JA, Robledo-Arnuncio JJ. Microgeographic variation in early fitness traits of Pinus sylvestris from contrasting soils. AMERICAN JOURNAL OF BOTANY 2023; 110:e16159. [PMID: 36943007 DOI: 10.1002/ajb2.16159] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/30/2022] [Revised: 03/01/2023] [Accepted: 03/01/2023] [Indexed: 05/11/2023]
Abstract
PREMISE The possibility of fine-scale intraspecific adaptive divergence under gene flow is established by theoretical models and has been confirmed empirically in tree populations distributed along steep altitudinal clines or across extreme edaphic discontinuities. However, the possibility of microgeographic adaptive divergence due to less severe but more frequent kinds of soil variation is unclear. METHODS In this study, we looked for evidence of local adaptation to calcareous versus siliceous soil types in two nearby Mediterranean Pinus sylvestris populations connected via pollen flow. Using a greenhouse experiment, we tested for variation in early (up to three years of age) seedling performance among open-pollinated maternal families originating from each edaphic provenance when experimentally grown on both types of natural local substrate. RESULTS Although seedlings were clearly affected by the edaphic environment, exhibiting lower and slower emergence as well as higher mortality on the calcareous than in the siliceous substrate, neither the performance on each substrate nor the plasticity among substrates varied significantly with seedling edaphic provenance. CONCLUSIONS We found no evidence of local adaptation to a non-extreme edaphic discontinuity over a small spatial scale, at least during early stages of seedling establishment. Future studies on microgeographic soil-driven adaptation should consider long-term experiments to minimize maternal effects and allow a potentially delayed expression of edaphic adaptive divergence.
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Affiliation(s)
- Azucena Jiménez-Ramírez
- Instituto de Ciencias Forestales, Instituto Nacional de Investigación y Tecnología Agraria y Alimentaria (ICIFOR-INIA), Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC), Madrid, Spain
- Department of Genetics, Faculty of Biological Sciences, Complutense University of Madrid, Madrid, Spain
| | - Aida Solé-Medina
- Instituto de Ciencias Forestales, Instituto Nacional de Investigación y Tecnología Agraria y Alimentaria (ICIFOR-INIA), Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC), Madrid, Spain
| | - José A Ramírez-Valiente
- Instituto de Ciencias Forestales, Instituto Nacional de Investigación y Tecnología Agraria y Alimentaria (ICIFOR-INIA), Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC), Madrid, Spain
- Ecological and Forestry Applications Research Centre (CREAF), Cerdanyola del Vallès, Spain
| | - Juan J Robledo-Arnuncio
- Instituto de Ciencias Forestales, Instituto Nacional de Investigación y Tecnología Agraria y Alimentaria (ICIFOR-INIA), Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC), Madrid, Spain
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Valverde-Barrantes OJ, Smemo KA, Feinstein LM, Kershner MW, Blackwood CB. Aggregated and complementary: symmetric proliferation, overyielding, and mass effects explain fine-root biomass in soil patches in a diverse temperate deciduous forest landscape. THE NEW PHYTOLOGIST 2015; 205:731-742. [PMID: 25441303 DOI: 10.1111/nph.13179] [Citation(s) in RCA: 19] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/28/2014] [Accepted: 10/12/2014] [Indexed: 06/04/2023]
Abstract
Few studies describe root distributions at the species level in diverse forests, although belowground species interactions and traits are often assumed to affect fine-root biomass (FRB). We used molecular barcoding to study how FRB of trees relates to soil characteristics, species identity, root diversity, and root traits, and how these relationships are affected by proximity to ecotones in a temperate forest landscape. We found that soil patch root biomass increased in response to soil resources across all species, and there was little belowground vertical or horizontal spatial segregation among species. Root traits and species relative abundance did not explain significant variation in FRB after correcting for soil fertility. A positive relationship between phylogenetic diversity and FRB indicated significant belowground overyielding attributable to local root diversity. Finally, variation in FRB explained by soil fertility and diversity was reduced near ecotones, but only because of a reduction in biomass in periodically anoxic areas. These results suggest that symmetric responses to soil properties are coupled with complementary species traits and interactions to explain variation in FRB among soil patches. In addition, landscape-level dispersal among habitats and across ecotones helps explain variation in the strength of these relationships in complex landscapes.
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Brousseau L, Bonal D, Cigna J, Scotti I. Highly local environmental variability promotes intrapopulation divergence of quantitative traits: an example from tropical rain forest trees. ANNALS OF BOTANY 2013; 112:1169-79. [PMID: 24023042 PMCID: PMC3783240 DOI: 10.1093/aob/mct176] [Citation(s) in RCA: 12] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/11/2013] [Accepted: 06/20/2013] [Indexed: 05/24/2023]
Abstract
BACKGROUND AND AIMS In habitat mosaics, plant populations face environmental heterogeneity over short geographical distances. Such steep environmental gradients can induce ecological divergence. Lowland rainforests of the Guiana Shield are characterized by sharp, short-distance environmental variations related to topography and soil characteristics (from waterlogged bottomlands on hydromorphic soils to well-drained terra firme on ferralitic soils). Continuous plant populations distributed along such gradients are an interesting system to study intrapopulation divergence at highly local scales. This study tested (1) whether conspecific populations growing in different habitats diverge at functional traits, and (2) whether they diverge in the same way as congeneric species having different habitat preferences. METHODS Phenotypic differentiation was studied within continuous populations occupying different habitats for two congeneric, sympatric, and ecologically divergent tree species (Eperua falcata and E. grandiflora, Fabaceae). Over 3000 seeds collected from three habitats were germinated and grown in a common garden experiment, and 23 morphological, biomass, resource allocation and physiological traits were measured. KEY RESULTS In both species, seedling populations native of different habitats displayed phenotypic divergence for several traits (including seedling growth, biomass allocation, leaf chemistry, photosynthesis and carbon isotope composition). This may occur through heritable genetic variation or other maternally inherited effects. For a sub-set of traits, the intraspecific divergence associated with environmental variation coincided with interspecific divergence. CONCLUSIONS The results indicate that mother trees from different habitats transmit divergent trait values to their progeny, and suggest that local environmental variation selects for different trait optima even at a very local spatial scale. Traits for which differentiation within species follows the same pattern as differentiation between species indicate that the same ecological processes underlie intra- and interspecific variation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Louise Brousseau
- INRA, UMR ‘Ecologie des Forêts de Guyane’, Campus agronomique, BP 709, 97387 Kourou cedex, French Guiana
- INRA, UMR 1137 ‘Ecologie et Ecophysiologie Forestières’, 54280 Champenoux, France
- Université de Lorraine, UMR 1137 ‘Ecologie et Ecophysiologie Forestières’, Faculté des Sciences, Vandœuvre-lès-Nancy, France
| | - Damien Bonal
- INRA, UMR ‘Ecologie des Forêts de Guyane’, Campus agronomique, BP 709, 97387 Kourou cedex, French Guiana
- INRA, UMR 1137 ‘Ecologie et Ecophysiologie Forestières’, 54280 Champenoux, France
- Université de Lorraine, UMR 1137 ‘Ecologie et Ecophysiologie Forestières’, Faculté des Sciences, Vandœuvre-lès-Nancy, France
| | - Jeremy Cigna
- INRA, UMR ‘Ecologie des Forêts de Guyane’, Campus agronomique, BP 709, 97387 Kourou cedex, French Guiana
| | - Ivan Scotti
- INRA, UMR ‘Ecologie des Forêts de Guyane’, Campus agronomique, BP 709, 97387 Kourou cedex, French Guiana
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