Abstract
Plant phenology differs largely among coexisting species within communities that share similar habitat conditions. However, the factors explaining such phenological diversity of plants have not been fully investigated. We hypothesize that species traits, including leaf mass per area (LMA), seed mass, stem tissue mass density (STD), maximum plant height (Hmax), and relative growth rate in height (RGRH), explain variation in plant phenology, and tested this hypothesis in an alpine meadow. Results showed that both LMA and STD were positively correlated with the onset (i.e., beginning) and offset (i.e., ending) times of the four life history events including two reproductive events (flowering and fruiting) and two vegetative events (leafing and senescing). In contrast, RGRH was negatively correlated with the four life phenological events. Moreover, Hmax was positively correlated with reproductive events but not with vegetative events. However, none of the eight phenological events was associated with seed size. In addition, the combination of LMA and STD accounted for 50% of the variation in plant phenologies. Phylogenetic generalized least squares analysis showed plant phylogeny weakened the relationships between species traits vs. phenologies. Phylogeny significantly regulated the variation in the ending but not the beginning of phenologies. Our results indicate that species traits are robust indicators for plant phenologies and can be used to explain the diversity of plant phenologies among co-occurring herbaceous species in grasslands. The findings highlight the important role of the combination of and trade-offs between functional traits in determing plant phenology diversity in the alpine meadow.
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Acknowledgements
We thank Jian Feng, Yibin Yuan, and Ang Zhang for the help with data collection; Xinqiang Xi and Xiaoli Hu for the help on phylogenetic regression analyses.
Funding
This study was funded by National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant number 31530007, 31670477, and 31770522).
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YL, GL, and SS collected the data and wrote the first draft of the manuscript. YL and XW analyzed the data. YL, GL, KJN, ZY, and SS contributed substantially to technical support and English revisions. SS design the experiment.
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Communicated by Jonathan A. Myers.
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Liu, Y., Li, G., Wu, X. et al. Linkage between species traits and plant phenology in an alpine meadow. Oecologia 195, 409–419 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-020-04846-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-020-04846-y