研究植物种内性状变异(ITV)的原因和后果并不新鲜,因为人们早就认识到这种变异会形成生物和非生物的相互作用。虽然进化和种群生物学已经对ITV进行了广泛的研究,仅在过去的10年中,社区和比较生态学对ITV的兴趣激增。
尽管最近有这种兴趣,仍然缺乏对ITV范围的彻底描述,ITV的时空结构,以及ITV与社区和生态系统属性之间的更强联系。我们在这篇综述中的主要目的是综合最近的文献,并问:(1)跨尺度性状的种内变异有多广泛,以及驱动这种变化的潜在机制是什么?(2)这种变化如何影响高阶生态过程(例如,种群动态,社区集会,入侵,生态系统生产力)?(3)忽视独立电视台的后果是什么,如何减轻这些后果?(4)最紧迫的研究问题是什么,以及如何修改当前的实践以适应我们的研究需求?我们的次要目标是针对多样化和代表性不足的特征和植物器官,包括解剖学,木头,根,液压系统,繁殖和二次化学。为了实现这些目标,我们展示特刊的论文。
植物ITV在决定个体和群体表现方面发挥着关键作用,物种相互作用,社区结构和集会,和生态系统属性。它的范围因物种而异,特征和环境,并且仍然很难为ITV开发一个广泛适用的预测模型。系统地表征来源(例如个体发育,人口差异)的ITV将是朝着确定普遍性和塑造ITV的潜在机制迈出的重要一步。虽然在许多情况下,使用物种手段将性状与高阶过程联系起来可能是合适的,这种方法可能会掩盖潜在有意义的变化。我们敦促在在线数据存储库中报告个人复制和人口手段,更多地考虑增强和限制ITV范围的机制,和跨越子学科的研究。
Investigating the causes and consequences of intraspecific trait variation (ITV) in plants is not novel, as it has long been recognized that such variation shapes biotic and abiotic interactions. While evolutionary and population biology have extensively investigated ITV, only in the last 10 years has interest in ITV surged within community and comparative ecology.
Despite this recent interest, still lacking are thorough descriptions of ITV\'s extent, the spatial and temporal structure of ITV, and stronger connections between ITV and community and ecosystem properties. Our primary aim in this review is to synthesize the recent literature and ask: (1) How extensive is intraspecific variation in traits across scales, and what underlying mechanisms drive this variation? (2) How does this variation impact higher-order ecological processes (e.g. population dynamics, community assembly, invasion, ecosystem productivity)? (3) What are the consequences of ignoring ITV and how can these be mitigated? and (4) What are the most pressing research questions, and how can current practices be modified to suit our research needs? Our secondary aim is to target diverse and underrepresented traits and plant organs, including anatomy, wood, roots, hydraulics, reproduction and secondary chemistry. In addressing these aims, we showcase papers from the Special Issue.
Plant ITV plays a key role in determining individual and population performance, species interactions, community structure and assembly, and ecosystem properties. Its extent varies widely across species, traits and environments, and it remains difficult to develop a predictive model for ITV that is broadly applicable. Systematically characterizing the sources (e.g. ontogeny, population differences) of ITV will be a vital step forward towards identifying generalities and the underlying mechanisms that shape ITV. While the use of species means to link traits to higher-order processes may be appropriate in many cases, such approaches can obscure potentially meaningful variation. We urge the reporting of individual replicates and population means in online data repositories, a greater consideration of the mechanisms that enhance and constrain ITV\'s extent, and studies that span sub-disciplines.