Phenotypic plasticity of four Chenopodiaceae species with contrasting saline-sodic tolerance in response to increased salinity-sodicity.
Ecol Evol
; 9(4): 1545-1553, 2019 Feb.
Article
em En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-30847054
ABSTRACT
It is unknown whether phenotypic plasticity in fitness-related traits is associated with salinity-sodicity tolerance. This study compared growth and allocation phenotypic plasticity in two species with low salinity-sodicity tolerance (Chenopodium acuminatum and C. stenophyllum) and two species with high salinity-sodicity tolerance (Suaeda glauca and S. salsa) in a pot experiment in the Songnen grassland, China. While the species with low tolerance had higher growth and allocation plasticity than the highly tolerant species, the highly tolerant species only adjusted their growth traits and maintained higher fitness (e.g., plant height and total biomass) in response to increased soil salinity-sodicity, with low biomass allocation plasticity. Most plasticity is "apparent" plasticity (ontogenetic change), and only a few traits, for example, plant heightstem diameter ratio and rootshoot biomass ratio, represent "real" plasticity (real change in response to the environment). Our results show that phenotypic plasticity was negatively correlated with saline-sodic tolerance and could be used as an index of species sensitivity to soil salinity-sodicity.
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1
Coleções:
01-internacional
Base de dados:
MEDLINE
Idioma:
En
Revista:
Ecol Evol
Ano de publicação:
2019
Tipo de documento:
Article