Physiological cold tolerance evolves faster than climatic niches in plants.

ABSTRACT: Understanding how plants respond to thermal stress is central to predicting plant responses and community dynamics in natural ecosystems under projected scenarios of climate change. Although physiological tolerance is suggested to evolve slower than climatic niches, this comparison remains to be addressed in plants using a phylogenetic comparative approach. In this study, we compared i) the evolutionary rates of physiological tolerance to extreme temperatures with ii) the corresponding rates of climatic niche across three major vascular plant groups. We further accounted for the potential effects of hardening when examining the association between physiological and climatic niche rates. We found that physiological cold tolerance evolves faster than heat tolerance in all three groups. The c

SUBMITTER: Wen Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10515087 | biostudies-literature | 2023

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature