bei Google ScholarTitelangaben
Harter, David ; Nagy, Laura ; Backhaus, Sabrina ; Beierkuhnlein, Carl ; Fussi, Barbara ; Huber, Gerhard ; Jentsch, Anke ; Konnert, Monika ; Thiel, Daniel ; Kreyling, Jürgen:
A comparison of genetic diversity and phenotypic plasticity among European beech (Fagus sylvatica L.) populations from Bulgaria and Germany under drought and temperature manipulation.
In: International Journal of Plant Sciences.
Bd. 176
(2015)
Heft 3
.
- S. 232-244.
ISSN 1058-5893
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1086/679349
Abstract
In the future, ecosystems will have to deal with climate warming in combination withincreasing frequency and magnitude of extreme weather events such as drought.Adaptive phenotypic plasticity enables plants to respond to environmental variabilityand is likely to buffer impacts of climate change. Therefore, factors that influence thephenotypic plasticity of plant populations must be identified to assess climate changeoutcomes and support conservation measures. Genetic diversity in many temperateplant species is known to vary among regions and populations, largely as a result oftheir phylogeographic history during the late Pleistocene and Holocene. Here, weargue that high (neutral) genetic diversity of populations might represent increasedprobability of possessing alleles or allele combinations that are advantageous or morecapable in terms of average response capacities to environmental change. We test thisidea for European beech (Fagus sylvatica) by investigating response patterns of plantgrowth and leaf phenology to drought and warming treatments in a common gardenexperiment with seedlings of six populations from Bulgaria and Germany. Phenotypicplasticity of populations was assessed and correlated with allozyme diversity.Populations differed in their plasticity to warming with respect to timing of leaf unfoldingand senescence as well as in their drought plasticity in terms of height increment(marginally not significant), with some populations showing consistently high plasticityamong traits.Measures of genetic diversity showed an inter-regional structure according to knownphylogeographic patterns. Height increment plasticity showed a significant positivecorrelation with genetic variation (allelic diversity) at the population level.Our results suggest general differences in phenotypic plasticity among populations anda potential influence of genetic diversity on the average plasticity. Besides itsevolutionary value, genetic diversity might thus be an important property of plantpopulations for their short-term response capability against adverse effects of climatechange.