Tropical shrubs living in an extreme environment show convergent ecological strategies but divergent ecophysiological strategies.

ABSTRACT:

Background and aims

Trait-based frameworks assess plant survival strategies using different approaches. Some frameworks use functional traits to assign species to a priori defined ecological strategies. Others use functional traits as the central element of a species ecophysiological strategy. We compared these two approaches by asking: (1) what is the primary ecological strategy of three dominant co-occurring shrub species from inselbergs based on the CSR scheme, and (2) what main functional traits characterize the ecophysiological strategy of the species based on their use of carbon, water and light?

Methods

We conducted our study on a Colombian inselberg. In this extreme environment with multiple stressors (high temperatures and low resource availability), we expected all

SUBMITTER: Aragon L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10072103 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature