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Drought stress triggers differential survival and functional trait responses in the establishment of Arnica montana seedlings

Stanik, Nils
Lampei, Christian
Rosenthal, Gert
  • The establishment and survival of seedlings are critical stages in the life cycle of plants and therefore usually well timed to humid and favourable conditions. Climate projections suggest that the threatened mountain grassland species Arnica montana may be increasingly exposed to drought stress. However, studies that focus on the species’ early development are missing. We evaluated impacts of drought-induced stress on A. montana seedlings in their early establishment phase and identified traits that could cause the species’ fitness to decline.
  • In a greenhouse experiment, we tested the response of A. montana seedlings to different drought levels (moderate, strong, extreme). To assess their fitness under increasing drought, we evaluated survival of the seedlings based on four senescence stages and measured the performance of above- and belowground morphological and physiological functional traits.
  • Arnica montana seedlings showed high resistance to drought. Senescence accelerated and survival declined only under strong and extreme drought conditions. However, the seedlings’ vegetative performance decreased even with moderate drought, as indicated by smaller values of most leaf traits and some root traits. Physiological trait response was less sensitive.
  • Drought stress hinders the establishment and survival of A. montana seedlings. Following the functional trait responses to drought and their association with survival, we suggest declining leaf length, leaf width, and leaf number are sensitive traits that can lead to a decline in performance.
Sponsor
Gefördert im Rahmen des Projekts DEAL Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt. Grant Number: 20016/464
Citation
In: Plant Biology Volume 23 / Issue 6 (2021-07-15) , S. 1086-1096; eissn:1438-8677
Collections
@article{doi:10.17170/kobra-202111015003,
  author    ={Stanik, Nils and Lampei, Christian and Rosenthal, Gert},
  title    ={Drought stress triggers differential survival and functional trait responses in the establishment of Arnica montana seedlings},
  keywords ={580 and Arnika and Klimaänderung and Dürre and Pflanzenökologie and Setzling and Pflanzenvermehrung and Altern and Artenschutz and Stressreaktion},
  copyright  ={http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/},
  language ={en},
  journal  ={Plant Biology},
  year   ={2021-07-15}
}