The Importance of Phenotypic Plasticity for Plant Success Under Environmental Change
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The importance of phenotypic plasticity for plant success under environmental change Doctoral thesis for obtaining the academic degree Doctor of Natural Sciences submitted by Liu, Yanjie at the University of Konstanz Faculty of Sciences Department of Biology Konstanzer Online-Publikations-System (KOPS) URL: http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bsz:352-0-423152 Date of the oral examination: 28 July 2017 1. Reviewer: Prof. Dr. Mark van Kleunen 2. Reviewer: Prof. Dr. Oliver Bossdorf To my wife who has supported me during my Ph.D. study To my son who is the most precious gift I have received until now i Table of contents Summary .................................................................................................................................. iv Zusammenfassung.................................................................................................................. vii General introduction ............................................................................................................... 1 Environmental change............................................................................................................. 1 Biological invasions ................................................................................................................ 2 Phenotypic plasticity ............................................................................................................... 3 Research gaps .......................................................................................................................... 6 Contribution of this thesis ....................................................................................................... 8 Chapter 1 Do invasive alien plants benefit more from global environmental change than native plants? ..................................................................................................................... 11 Abstract ................................................................................................................................. 12 Introduction ........................................................................................................................... 13 Materials and methods .......................................................................................................... 15 Results ................................................................................................................................... 19 Discussion ............................................................................................................................. 22 Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................... 26 Supporting information ......................................................................................................... 27 Chapter 2 Responses of common and rare aliens and natives to nutrient availability and fluctuations ........................................................................................................................ 41 Summary ............................................................................................................................... 42 Introduction ........................................................................................................................... 43 Materials and Methods .......................................................................................................... 46 Results ................................................................................................................................... 51 Discussion ............................................................................................................................. 55 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................ 62 Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................... 62 Supporting Information ......................................................................................................... 63 Chapter 3 Increases in nutrient availability and fluctuations do not promote dominance of alien plants in native communities .............................................................................. 78 Summary ............................................................................................................................... 79 Introduction ........................................................................................................................... 81 ii Materials and Methods .......................................................................................................... 83 Results ................................................................................................................................... 87 Discussion ............................................................................................................................. 90 Conclusions ........................................................................................................................... 94 Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................... 95 Supporting information ......................................................................................................... 96 Chapter 4 Does greater specific-leaf-area plasticity help plants to maintain a high performance when shaded? .............................................................................................. 99 Abstract ............................................................................................................................... 100 Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 101 Materials and methods ........................................................................................................ 102 Results ................................................................................................................................. 107 Discussion ........................................................................................................................... 108 Conslusions ......................................................................................................................... 113 Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................. 113 Supplementary materials ..................................................................................................... 114 General discussion ............................................................................................................... 126 Plant invasion under changes in mean environmental conditions .................................... 126 Plant invasion under nutrient fluctuation ............................................................................ 129 Adaptive phenotypic plasticity............................................................................................ 131 Conclusion .......................................................................................................................... 132 Author contributions ........................................................................................................... 133 Cited references .................................................................................................................... 134 Acknowledgements .............................................................................................................. 147 iii Summary Environmental factors can change in space and time both in terms of the mean conditions and in terms of variability. Phenotypic plasticity is assumed to be an important mechanism lead- ing to plant success under both natural and/or anthropogenic environmental change condi- tions. Yet, we still have a limited understanding of whether phenotypic plasticity contributes to the success of alien plant species under environmental change. Moreover, phenotypic plas- ticity of many functional traits associated with nutrient uptake and light capture are frequent- ly implicitly assumed to be adaptive in many studies. However, the adaptive value has rarely been tested for most of them. Therefore, my thesis aimed to gain insights into how phenotyp- ic plasticity contributes to plant success under environmental change, specifically focusing on plant invasion under anthropogenic global change and nutrient fluctuations. Additionally, I also tested whether phenotypic plastic responses that are assumed to be adaptive are really adaptive, specifically focusing on the plastic response of specific leaf area (SLA) induced by changes in light intensity. First, I performed a meta-analysis to test whether there is a general pattern in invasive and native plant responses to environmental change in mean conditions. I established a plant da- tabase, which included 74 invasive alien plant species and 117 native plant species. I com- pared plastic responses in performance traits to increasing atmospheric CO2 concentrations, increasing temperatures, increasing N deposition, and increasing or decreasing precipitation between invasive alien and native plants. I found that invasive alien plant species showed stronger positive responses to favourable