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Explaining long-term inter-individual growth variation in plant populations: persistence of abiotic factors matters

  • Population ecology – original research
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Abstract

An unanswered question in ecology is whether the environmental factors driving short-term performance also determine the often observed long-term performance differences among individuals. Here, we analyze the extent to which temporal persistence of spatial heterogeneity in environmental factors can contribute to long-term inter-individual variation in stem length growth. For a natural population of a long-lived understorey palm, we first quantified the effect of several environmental factors on stem length growth and survival. We then performed individual-based simulations of growth trajectories, in which we varied, for two environmental factors: (1) the strength of the effect on stem length growth and (2) the temporal persistence. Short-term variation in stem length growth was strongly driven by light availability. Auto-correlation in light availability and soil pH increased simulated variation in stem length growth among 20-year-old palms to levels similar to the observed variation. Analyses in which we varied both the strength of the effect on stem length growth and the temporal persistence of the environmental factors revealed that a large fraction of observed long-term growth differences can be explained, as long as one of these effects is strong. This implies that environmental factors that are relatively unimportant for short-term performance can still drive long-term performance differences when the environmental variation is sufficiently persistent over time.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Jorge Rodriguez-Velázquez, Gilberto Jamangapé, Miguel Jamangapé and Ana Lidia Sandoval Pérez for technical support and logistic help, and Sam Muntjewerf, Sara Vandersmissen and Charlotte Watteyn for help with data collection during their MSc thesis project. Bert Janssen is thanked for his suggestions on the importance of several soil characteristics, and Yngvild Vindenes and two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments on earlier versions of this manuscript. M.J. was supported by a grant-in-aid from the Dutch Science Foundation (NWO, Grant number 022002004), and by grants from the KNAW ecology fund, stichting het Kronendak, the Exploration fund of the Explorers club, the Alberta Mennega stichting, and the TREUB maatschappij.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Forest Ecology and Forest Management, Wageningen University, Wageningen, The Netherlands

    Merel Jansen, Frans Bongers & Pieter A. Zuidema

  2. Centre for Crop Systems Analysis, Wageningen University, Wageningen, The Netherlands

    Merel Jansen & Niels P. R. Anten

  3. Research Institute on Ecosystems and Sustainability (IIES), National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), Morelia, Mexico

    Merel Jansen, Miguel Martínez-Ramos & Mayra E. Gavito

  4. Ecosystem Management, ETH Zürich, Zurich, Switzerland

    Merel Jansen

Authors
  1. Merel Jansen
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  2. Niels P. R. Anten
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  3. Frans Bongers
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  4. Miguel Martínez-Ramos
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  6. Pieter A. Zuidema
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Contributions

MJ, NA, MM, FB, PZ designed the setup of the demographic plot, MJ, NA, MM, FB, MG, PZ designed sampling protocols of environmental measurements, MJ conducted field work and analyzed the data, other authors provided advice on data analysis, MJ constructed the simulation models, NA, FB, PZ provided advice on the construction of the simulation models, MJ wrote the manuscript, other authors provided editorial advice.

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Correspondence to Merel Jansen.

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Communicated by Wayne Dawson.

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Jansen, M., Anten, N.P.R., Bongers, F. et al. Explaining long-term inter-individual growth variation in plant populations: persistence of abiotic factors matters. Oecologia 185, 663–674 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-017-3978-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-017-3978-1

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