Nutritional convergence in plants growing on gypsum soils in two distinct climatic regions.

ABSTRACT:

Background and aims

Soil endemics have long fascinated botanists owing to the insights they can provide about plant ecology and evolution. Often, these species have unique foliar nutrient composition patterns that reflect potential physiological adaptations to these harsh soil types. However, understanding global nutritional patterns to unique soil types can be complicated by the influence of recent and ancient evolutionary events. Our goal was to understand whether plant specialization to unique soils is a stronger determinant of nutrient composition of plants than climate or evolutionary constraints.

Methods

We worked on gypsum soils. We analysed whole-plant nutrient composition (leaves, stems, coarse roots and fine roots) of 36 native species of gypsophilous lineages from

SUBMITTER: Muller CT 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11687619 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature