CEFE, CNRS, Univ Montpellier, Univ Paul Valéry Montpellier 3, EPHE, IRD, route de Mende, 34293, Montpellier Cedex 5, France.
CEFE, Montpellier SupAgro, CNRS, Univ. Montpellier, Univ Paul Valéry Montpellier 3, EPHE, IRD, Montpellier, 34060, France.
New Phytol. 2020 Jan;225(2):740-753. doi: 10.1111/nph.16165. Epub 2019 Oct 1.
Phenology, the study of seasonal timing of events in nature, plays a key role in the matching between organisms and their environment. Yet, it has been poorly integrated in trait-based descriptions of the plant phenotype. Here, we focus on three phases of reproductive phenology - time of flowering, time of seed dispersal and duration of seed maturation - to test how these traits relate to other recognized dimensions of plant functioning. Traits describing reproductive phenology, together with reproductive plant height, seed mass, area of a leaf, and traits involved in leaf economics, were compiled for 139 species growing under Mediterranean climate conditions. Across all species, flowering time was positively related to reproductive height, while the duration of seed maturation was related to leaf economics. Relationships differed among growth forms, however: flowering time and reproductive height were related both in annuals and in herbaceous perennials, whereas the duration of seed maturation was related to seed mass only in annuals; no correlations were found for woody species. Phenology relates to other dimensions of plant functioning in a complex manner, suggesting that it should be considered as an independent dimension in the context of plant strategies.
物候学，即研究自然界中事件的季节性时间安排，在生物与其环境的匹配中起着关键作用。然而，它在基于特征的植物表型描述中整合得很差。在这里，我们关注生殖物候的三个阶段 - 开花时间、种子散布时间和种子成熟时间 - 以检验这些特征如何与植物功能的其他公认维度相关。描述生殖物候的特征，以及生殖植物高度、种子质量、叶片面积和与叶片经济有关的特征，被编译为 139 种在地中海气候条件下生长的物种。在所有物种中，开花时间与生殖高度呈正相关，而种子成熟时间与叶片经济有关。然而，这些关系在不同的生长形式中有所不同：开花时间和生殖高度在一年生植物和草本多年生植物中都有关系，而种子成熟时间只与一年生植物中的种子质量有关；对于木本物种则没有相关性。物候学以复杂的方式与植物功能的其他维度相关，这表明它应该在植物策略的背景下被视为一个独立的维度。
