e-journal

Highly local environmental variability promotes intrapopulation divergence of quantitative traits: an example from tropical rain forest trees

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† 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 sameway as congeneric species having different habitat preferences.

† Methods:
Phenotypic differentiationwas 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.

Key words: Eperua falcata, E. grandiflora, habitat mosaics, intrapopulation divergence, maternal family
inheritance, common garden experiment, ecological traits.

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Informasi Detail

Judul Seri

Annals of Botany

No. Panggil

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Penerbit

Oxford : Oxford University Press on behalf of the Annals of Botany Company., 2013

Deskripsi Fisik

Annals of Botany 112: 1169–1179, 2013

Bahasa

English

ISBN/ISSN

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Klasifikasi

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Tipe Isi

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Tipe Media

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Tipe Pembawa

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Edisi

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Subjek

EKOLOGI TANAMAN

Info Detail Spesifik

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Pernyataan Tanggungjawab

agus

Versi lain/terkait

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