Rosbakh, Sergey and Poschlod, Peter (2015) Initial temperature of seed germination as related to species occurrence along a temperature gradient. FUNCTIONAL ECOLOGY, 29 (1). pp. 5-14. ISSN 0269-8463, 1365-2435
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1. Reproductive stages of life cycle are important for the explanation of distribution patterns of plant species at different scales, due to their extreme vulnerability to environmental conditions. Despite reported evidences that seed germination is related to habitat macroclimatic characteristics such as mean annual temperature (MAT) and precipitation, the role of this trait in controlling plant species distribution is not systematically and quantitatively evaluated yet. Using the data on seed germination along a temperature gradient for 49 species originating from contrasting climatic conditions, we test here whether initial temperature of seed germination (T-min) is a direct correlate for predicting species distribution ranges along the temperature gradient. Our study reveals that T-min is strongly negatively correlated with habitat temperature; among the studied species, T-min clearly increased with decreasing MAT (r(2)=057, P<0001). Considering phylogenetic biases, co-evolution of seed traits as well as precipitation along with microclimatic factors did not affect the strength of this relationship. The results suggest that the T-min-MAT relation can provide insights particularly into species distribution patterns, vegetation dynamics and community assembly rules along altitudinal and latitudinal gradients. We argue that including the T-min in species distribution models may help to improve the accuracy and specificity of predictions of vegetation shifts under global change scenarios.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | FUNCTIONAL TRAITS WORLDWIDE; GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION; PHYLOGENETIC SIGNAL; ALPINE PLANTS; CARYOPHYLLACEAE; NICHE; ECOPHYSIOLOGY; REGENERATION; HABITATS; HANDBOOK; climate change; initial temperature; plant distribution; seed germination; temperature gradient |
| Subjects: | 500 Science > 580 Botanical sciences |
| Divisions: | Biology, Preclinical Medicine > Institut für Pflanzenwissenschaften > Lehrstuhl für Botanik |
| Depositing User: | Dr. Gernot Deinzer |
| Date Deposited: | 02 Aug 2019 09:40 |
| Last Modified: | 02 Aug 2019 09:40 |
| URI: | https://pred.uni-regensburg.de/id/eprint/6322 |
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