Individuals within natural populations can experience very different abiotic and biotic conditions across small spatial scales owing to microtopography and other micro-environmental gradients. Ecological and evolutionary studies often ignore the effects of micro-environment on plant population and community dynamics. Here, we explore the extent to which fine-grained variation in abiotic and biotic conditions contributes to within-population variation in trait expression and genetic diversity in natural plant populations. Furthermore, we consider whether benign microhabitats could buffer local populations of some plant species from abiotic stresses imposed by rapid anthropogenic climate change. If microrefugia sustain local populations and communities in the short term, other eco-evolutionary processes, such as gene flow and adaptation, could enhance population stability in the longer term. We caution, however, that local populations may still decline in size as they contract into rare microhabitats and microrefugia. We encourage future research that explicitly examines the role of the micro-environment in maintaining genetic variation within local populations, favouring the evolution of phenotypic plasticity at local scales and enhancing population persistence under global change.
Recreational urban parks support diverse assemblages of plants that through their functions, contribute beneficial services to billions of individuals throughout the world. Drivers of vegetation-derived services in parks are complex, as climate and park management interact with the functioning of multiple species of vegetation types. Yet, informal observations suggest that recreational parks are constructed consistently to specific principles of landscape design. Here we ask: what are the patterns of functional traits and vegetation diversity in cities of varying climate in the United States, and how do these patterns result in a consistent typology of recreational park? We hypothesized that increased aridity would exclude species not adapted to warm, dry climates, thereby reducing local, or alpha, taxonomic diversity and shifting community composition. However, a similar preference of park managers in the United States for suites of servicebased functional traits leads to similarity of mean values of services traits in recreational parks among cities, regardless of climate differences. We tested this hypothesis by surveying lawn species, comprised of herbaceous turf and spontaneous plants, and woody species in fifteen recreational parks across Baltimore MD, Riverside CA, and Palm Springs CA, three cities that contain multiple parks but differ in regional climate. With increasing aridity, taxonomic alpha diversity decreased and plant physiology shifted, yet no differences were observed among most service-based functional traits. Among the cities surveyed, no significant differences were observed in functional dispersion of woody and spontaneous species or most service-based traits. Taxonomic composition differed in each city for all vegetation types, while suites of service-based traits differed between Baltimore and the two more arid cities of Riverside and Palm Springs. Our results suggest that across the United States, service-based functional traits are consistent, even when arising from unique compositions and abundances of species in recreational parks. We interpret these results as an interaction between climate and the preferences of recreation park managers for services, creating a pattern of vegetation diversity where taxonomic alpha and beta diversity vary among regions while specific suites of services remain available.
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