Phenotypic integration may constrain phenotypic plasticity in plants

Abstract

Phenotypic plasticity is essential for plant adaptation to changing environments but some factors limit its expression, causing plants to fail in producing the best phenotype for a given environment. Phenotypic integration refers to the pattern and magnitude of character correlations and it might play a role as an internal constraint to phenotypic plasticity. We tested the hypothesis that phenotypic integration Á estimated as the number of significant phenotypic correlations between traits Á constrains phenotypic plasticity of plants. The rationale is that, for any phenotypic trait, the more linked with other traits it is, the more limited is its range of variation. In the perennial species Convolvulus chilensis (Convolvulaceae) and Lippia alba (Verbenaceae) we determined the relationship between phenotypic plasticity to relevant environmental factors Á shading for C. chilensis and drought for L. alba Á and the magnitude of phenotypic integration of morphological and biomass allocation traits. In C. chilensis plants, plasticity to shading of a given trait decreased with the number of significant correlations that it had with the other traits. Likewise, the characters that showed greater plasticity to experimental drought in L. alba plants had fewer significant phenotypic correlations with other characters. We report a novel limit to phenotypic plasticity of plants by showing that the phenotypic trait architecture may constrain their plastic, functional responses to the environment.

Between migration load and evolutionary rescue: dispersal, adaptation and the response of spatially structured populations to environmental change

“…Thus, the benefit of dispersal in providing the necessary variation in climate alleles for adaptation is considerably higher when relaxing the assumption of linkage between loci. Our findings reflect recent empirical observations on the constraining effect of linkage between traits on the magnitude of response to various stresses [54,55], highlighting the importance of genetic architecture in determining the capacity of populations to respond to environmental change (e.g. [5,14]).…”

Contrasting Effects of Intraspecific Trait Variation on Trait-Based Niches and Performance of Legumes in Plant Mixtures

“…patterns and magnitude of character correlations [17], may play a role as internal constraint to intraspecific trait variation [15]. Phenotypic integration has been shown to increase with environmental stress and particularly where abiotic conditions are limiting [49,50], while other studies did not confirm this expectation [51]. In our study, the number of within-species trait correlations was higher in mixture than in monoculture, but the extraordinary tall-growing species O .…”

The relative importance for plant invasiveness of trait means, and their plasticity and integration in a multivariate framework

“…By contrast, physiological plasticity (PNUE) was not. Our discrepancy with Gianoli & Palacio‐López (2009) may be a result of the fact that they only correlated phenotypic integration to morphological plasticity. We hypothesize that a more integrated phenotype responds to environmental variation with traits of faster plastic responses because highly dynamic plasticity does not typically entail changes in other traits at higher levels of organization.…”