Form and function of island and mainland plants

Date:
July 14, 2023
Source:
University of Go"ttingen
Summary:
Oceanic islands provide useful models for ecology, biogeography
and evolutionary research. Many ground-breaking findings --
including Darwin's theory of evolution -- have emerged from the
study of species on islands and their interplay with their living
and non-living environment.

Now, an international research team has investigated the flora of
the Canary Island of Tenerife. The results were surprising: the
island's plant-life exhibits a remarkable diversity of forms. But
the plants differ little from mainland plants in functional
terms. However, unlike the flora of the mainland, the flora
of Tenerife is dominated by slow- growing, woody shrubs with a
'low-risk' life strategy.


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==========================================================================
FULL STORY ========================================================================== Oceanic islands provide useful models for ecology, biogeography and evolutionary research. Many ground-breaking findings -- including Darwin's theory of evolution -- have emerged from the study of species on islands
and their interplay with their living and non-living environment. Now,
an international research team led by the University of Go"ttingen has investigated the flora of the Canary Island of Tenerife. The results
were surprising: the island's plant-life exhibits a remarkable diversity
of forms.

But the plants differ little from mainland plants in functional
terms. However, unlike the flora of the mainland, the flora of Tenerife
is dominated by slow- growing, woody shrubs with a "low-risk" life
strategy. The results were published in Nature.

The researchers investigated how the plants of Tenerife differ
in functional terms from plants from other parts of the world. They
conducted extensive field research and measurements at over 500 sites
using the most up-to-date methods of functional ecology. The sites
were scattered all over the island at altitudes ranging from sea level
to mountainous regions above 3,300 metres. The scientists recorded
about 80% of Tenerife's native seed plants, and surveyed eight plant characteristics: plant size, specific wood density, leaf thickness,
absolute and specific leaf area, leaf dry matter, nitrogen concentration
in leaf tissue, and seed weight. They compared their data with data on
more than 2,000 plant species found on the mainland.

"Our study shows, for the first time and contrary to all expectations,
that species groups that evolved on the Canary Islands do not contribute
to the expansion of the breadth of different traits. This means they do
not lead to more functional diversity," explains the lead of the study, Professor Holger Kreft, and Go"ttingen University's Biodiversity,
Macroecology and Biogeography research group. Previous comparisons
show that species occurring on islands can differ significantly from
their relatives on the mainland. A well-known example is provided by
the Galapagos giant tortoise: the species is only found on the Galapagos Islands and, as a result of adaptation to its environmental conditions, is
much larger than tortoises from the mainland. The research team expected similar differences between island and mainland plants, but this was
not the case. "Rather, we see that most species follow the constraints
of the island climate. Thus, medium-sized, woody species develop. These
tend to live with the limited resources and high risks of extinction
on the island. That is, they grow slowly. The high functional diversity
is mainly due to the species that are widespread on the island and the
nearby mainland," explains Kreft.

"At the beginning of our research, we assumed that island plants would
show fundamental differences and would be characterised by rather limited diversity in terms of function due to their geographical isolation,"
explains first author Dr Paola Barajas Barbosa. The results are part of
her doctoral thesis, which she did at the University of Go"ttingen. She
now does research at the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity
Research in Leipzig (iDiv). "We were all the more surprised to find that
the plants of Tenerife have a comparatively high functional diversity."
* RELATED_TOPICS
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Story Source: Materials provided by University_of_Go"ttingen. Note:
Content may be edited for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Martha Paola Barajas Barbosa, Dylan Craven, Patrick Weigelt, Pierre
Denelle, Ru"diger Otto, Sandra Di'az, Jonathan Price, Jose'
Mari'a Ferna'ndez-Palacios, Holger Kreft. Assembly of functional
diversity in an oceanic island flora. Nature, 2023; DOI:
10.1038/s41586-023-06305-z ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/07/230714163216.htm

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