Publication Details

Category Text Publication
Reference Category Journals
DOI 10.1111/jse.13032
Licence creative commons licence
Title (Primary) A test of island plant syndromes using resource-use traits
Author Westerband, A.C.; Knight, T.M.; Barton, K.E.
Source Titel Journal of Systematics and Evolution
Year 2024
Department BZF; iDiv
Volume 62
Issue 2
Page From 233
Page To 241
Language englisch
Topic T5 Future Landscapes
Supplements https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/action/downloadSupplement?doi=10.1111%2Fjse.13032&file=jse13032-sup-0001-Westerband_JSE_SupplInfo.docx
Keywords endemic species; functional traits; Hawaii; island syndromes; leaf economics spectrum; phylogenetic disharmony
Abstract Despite representing a fraction of the global terrestrial surface area, oceanic islands are disproportionately diverse in species, resulting from high rates of endemicity. Island plants are thought to share a unique phenotype—referred to as an island syndrome—which is thought to be driven by convergent evolution in response to selection by shared abiotic and biotic factors. One aspect of the island plant syndrome that has received relatively little research focus is that island plants are expected to have converged on conservative resource use associated with slow growth rates and weak competitive abilities. Here we tested whether native, woody Hawaiian plant species are phenotypically distinct—with more resource-conservative leaf traits—compared to a globally distributed sample of continental species. Using an archipelago-wide trait data set, we detected that on average, native Hawaiian species had lower leaf nutrient concentrations overall, and lower nutrient concentrations at high leaf mass per area, but no other phenotypic differences compared with continental plants. There was also considerable overlap in the trait spaces of native Hawaiian species and continental species. Our findings indicate that an island plant syndrome for leaf traits is not present in the Hawaiian flora, and that island species can demonstrate extensive variation in their resource-use strategies, on a scale that is comparable with that of continental species worldwide.
Persistent UFZ Identifier https://www.ufz.de/index.php?en=20939&ufzPublicationIdentifier=28166
Westerband, A.C., Knight, T.M., Barton, K.E. (2024):
A test of island plant syndromes using resource-use traits
J. Syst. Evol. 62 (2), 233 - 241 10.1111/jse.13032