Within‐and among‐year germination in Sonoran Desert winter annuals: bet hedging and predictive germination in a variable environment
| Autor: | Sarah Kimball, Jennifer R. Gremer, D. Lawrence Venable |
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| Rok vydání: | 2016 |
| Předmět: |
0106 biological sciences
Adaptive value Ecology Germination Plants Biology Demographic data Biological Evolution Models Biological 010603 evolutionary biology 01 natural sciences Density dependence Seeds Dormancy Seasons Desert Climate Annual plant Temporal scales Ecosystem Ecology Evolution Behavior and Systematics 010606 plant biology & botany |
| Zdroj: | Ecology Letters. 19:1209-1218 |
| ISSN: | 1461-0248 1461-023X |
| DOI: | 10.1111/ele.12655 |
| Popis: | In variable environments, organisms must have strategies to ensure fitness as conditions change. For plants, germination can time emergence with favourable conditions for later growth and reproduction (predictive germination), spread the risk of unfavourable conditions (bet hedging) or both (integrated strategies). Here we explored the adaptive value of within- and among-year germination timing for 12 species of Sonoran Desert winter annual plants. We parameterised models with long-term demographic data to predict optimal germination fractions and compared them to observed germination. At both temporal scales we found that bet hedging is beneficial and that predicted optimal strategies corresponded well with observed germination. We also found substantial fitness benefits to varying germination timing, suggesting some degree of predictive germination in nature. However, predictive germination was imperfect, calling for some degree of bet hedging. Together, our results suggest that desert winter annuals have integrated strategies combining both predictive plasticity and bet hedging. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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