Department of Botany, Faculty of Science, University of South Bohemia, 37005, České Budějovice, Czech Republic.
Institute of Botany of the Czech Academy of Sciences, 37982, Třeboň, Czech Republic.
New Phytol. 2022 Dec;236(5):1964-1975. doi: 10.1111/nph.18386. Epub 2022 Aug 4.
Major dimensions of plant ecological strategies have been widely studied bringing forward the concept of 'economic spectra' of plants. Sexual reproductive traits, 'floral traits', have been largely neglected in this context, despite their strong link to fitness. Here, we aimed at integrating floral traits into the dimensionality of plant form and function so far dominated by vegetative traits. We used principal component analyses and constructed trait networks to assess the correlation structure of leaf, belowground, plant size-related, and floral traits. We studied forbs within two independent datasets; one compiled from central European trait databases and one sampled in the Austrian Alps. Floral traits defined the second dimension of trait variability within both datasets, while plant size determined the first dimension. Floral traits were largely independent from the leaf economic spectrum. Flower size, however, positively scaled with plant size and leaf size. Mating system was the most well-connected trait across modules of plant tissue/organ types. The independence of floral traits was consistent also after accounting for phylogenetic relationships between species. Floral traits explained a unique part of the variation in plant form and function and thus, likely play a distinctive ecological role within the whole plant economic spectrum.
植物生态策略的主要维度已经得到了广泛的研究，提出了植物“经济谱”的概念。在这种情况下，尽管与适应性有很强的联系，但有性生殖特征“花部特征”在很大程度上被忽视了。在这里，我们的目的是将花部特征整合到迄今为止主要由营养器官特征主导的植物形态和功能的维度中。我们使用主成分分析和构建性状网络来评估叶、地下、与植物大小相关的和花部特征之间的相关结构。我们在两个独立的数据集内研究了草本植物；一个是由中欧特征数据库编译的，另一个是在奥地利阿尔卑斯山采样的。在两个数据集内，花部特征定义了性状变异性的第二维，而植物大小决定了第一维。花部特征在很大程度上独立于叶片经济谱。然而，花的大小与植物大小和叶大小呈正相关。交配系统是跨植物组织/器官类型模块的连接性最好的性状。在考虑物种之间的系统发育关系后，花部特征的独立性仍然存在。花部特征解释了植物形态和功能变化的独特部分，因此，在整个植物经济谱中可能发挥独特的生态作用。
