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Climate variability affects the germination strategies exhibited by arid land plants

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Abstract

Spatial and temporal environmental variability can lead to variation in selection pressures across a landscape. Strategies for coping with environmental heterogeneity range from specialized phenotypic responses to a narrow range of conditions to generalist strategies that function under a range of conditions. Here, we ask how mean climate and climate variation at individual sites and across a species’ range affect the specialist-generalist spectrum of germination strategies exhibited by 10 arid land forbs. We investigated these relationships using climate data for the western United States, occurrence records from herbaria, and germination trials with field-collected seeds, and predicted that generalist strategies would be most common in species that experience a high degree of climate variation or occur over a wide range of conditions. We used two metrics to describe variation in germination strategies: (a) selectivity (did seeds require specific cues to germinate?) and (b) population-level variation (did populations differ in their responses to germination cues?) in germination displayed by each species. Species exhibited distinct germination strategies, with some species demonstrating as much among-population variation as we observed among species. Modeling efforts suggested that generalist strategies evolve in response to higher spatial variation in actual evapotranspiration at a local scale and in available water in the spring and annual precipitation at a range-wide scale. Describing the conditions that lead to variation in early life-history traits is important for understanding the evolution of diversity in natural systems, as well as the possible responses of individual species to global climate change.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the Great Basin Native Plant Project for their generous funding and the Germplasm Research Information Network/National Plant Germplasm System (GRIN/NPGS) for providing me with hand-collected seeds for my work with Phacelia hastata. Brittany Trimble, Lyndsey Boyer, Travis Allen, Vicki Thill, and Brianna Koorman provided valuable assistance with seed germination monitoring.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Science, University of Nevada, Reno, 1664 N. Virginia Street, MS 186, Reno, NV, USA

    Sarah Barga, Thomas E. Dilts & Elizabeth A. Leger

  2. Program in Ecology, Evolution, and Conservation Biology, University of Nevada, Reno, Reno, NV, USA

    Sarah Barga & Elizabeth A. Leger

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  1. Sarah Barga
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SCB and EAL conceived and designed the experiments. SCB performed the germination experiments. TED generated climate data and assisted with analyses using geospatial information and tools. SCB analyzed the data. SCB and EAL wrote the manuscript, and TED edited the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Sarah Barga.

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Communicated by Amy Freestone.

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Barga, S., Dilts, T.E. & Leger, E.A. Climate variability affects the germination strategies exhibited by arid land plants. Oecologia 185, 437–452 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-017-3958-5

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