Leaf morphological traits show greater responses to changes in climate than leaf physiological traits and gas exchange variables.

ABSTRACT: Adaptation to changing conditions is one of the strategies plants may use to survive in the face of climate change. We aimed to determine whether plants' leaf morphological and physiological traits/gas exchange variables have changed in response to recent, anthropogenic climate change. We grew seedlings from resurrected historic seeds from ex-situ seed banks and paired modern seeds in a common-garden experiment. Species pairs were collected from regions that had undergone differing levels of climate change using an emerging framework-Climate Contrast Resurrection Ecology, allowing us to hypothesise that regions with greater changes in climate (including temperature, precipitation, climate variability and climatic extremes) would be greater trait responses in leaf morphology and physiology

SUBMITTER: Everingham SE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10951557 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature