Asymmetric responses to simulated global warming by populations of Colobanthus quitensis along a latitudinal gradient

PeerJ

article

Ian S. Acuña-Rodríguez¹  Cristian Torres-Díaz²  Rasme Hereme¹  Marco A. Molina-Montenegro¹ 

[1] Centro de Ecología Molecular y Aplicaciones Evolutivas en Agroecosistemas ,(CEM), Instituto de Ciencias Biológicas, Universidad de Talca;Laboratorio de Genómica y Biodiversidad ,(LGB), Departamento de Ciencias Básicas, Universidad del Bío-Bío;Centro de Estudios Avanzados en Zonas Áridas ,(CEAZA), Facultad de Ciencias del Mar, Universidad Católica del Norte;Research Program “Adaptation of Agriculture to Climate Change” PIEI A2C2, Universidad de Talca

关键词: Antarctica;    Climate change;    Latitudinal gradient;    Global warming;   

DOI  :  10.7717/peerj.3718

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: Inra

【 摘 要 】

The increase in temperature as consequence of the recent global warming has been reported to generate new ice-free areas in the Antarctic continent, facilitating the colonization and spread of plant populations. Consequently, Antarctic vascular plants have been observed extending their southern distribution. But as the environmental conditions toward southern localities become progressively more departed from the species’ physiological optimum, the ecophysiological responses and survival to the expected global warming could be reduced. However, if processes of local adaptation are the main cause of the observed southern expansion, those populations could appear constrained to respond positively to the expected global warming. Using individuals from the southern tip of South America, the South Shetland Islands and the Antarctic Peninsula, we assess with a long term experiment (three years) under controlled conditions if the responsiveness of Colobanthus quitensis populations to the expected global warming, is related with their different foliar traits and photoprotective mechanisms along the latitudinal gradient. In addition, we tested if the release of the stress condition by the global warming in these cold environments increases the ecophysiological performance. For this, we describe the latitudinal pattern of net photosynthetic capacity, biomass accumulation, and number of flowers under current and future temperatures respective to each site of origin after three growing seasons. Overall, was found a clinal trend was found in the foliar traits and photoprotective mechanisms in the evaluated C. quitensis populations. On the other hand, an asymmetric response to warming was observed for southern populations in all ecophysiological traits evaluated, suggesting that low temperature is limiting the performance of C. quitensis populations. Our results suggest that under a global warming scenario, plant populations that inhabiting cold zones at high latitudes could increase in their ecophysiological performance, enhancing the size of populations or their spread.

【 授权许可】

CC BY