Functional trade-offs and the phylogenetic dispersion of seed traits in a biodiversity hotspot of the Mountains of Southwest China

Ecology and Evolution
Kai ChenDe-Zhu Li

Abstract

The diversity of traits associated with plant regeneration is often shaped by functional trade-offs where plants typically do not excel at every function because resources allocated to one function cannot be allocated to another. By analyzing correlations among seed traits, empirical studies have shown that there is a trade-off between seedling development and the occupation of new habitats, although only a small range of taxa have been tested; whether such trade-off exists in a biodiverse and complex landscape remains unclear. Here, we amassed seed trait data of 1,119 species from a biodiversity hotspot of the Mountains of Southwest China and analyzed the relationship between seed mass and the number of seeds and between seed mass and time to germination. Our results showed that seed mass was negatively correlated with seed number but positively correlated with time to germination. The same trend was found regardless of variation in life-form and phylogenetic conservatism. Furthermore, the relation between seed mass and other seed traits was randomly dispersed across the phylogeny at both the order and family levels. Collectively, results suggest that there is a functional trade-off between seedling development and new habitat...Continue Reading

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Citations

Feb 26, 2019·Science Advances·A L HargreavesP A Morales M
Jan 29, 2019·Ecology Letters·Xing-Yue M GeD Lawrence Venable

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Software Mentioned

R3
Phylomatic
APGIII
R Core Team
Phylocom
ape
plantlist
ImageJ
R package “ phytools ”

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