Trait plasticity and covariance along a continuous soil moisture gradient

Abstract

Water availability is perhaps the greatest environmental determinant of plant yield and fitness. However, our understanding of plant-water relations is limited because it is primarily informed by experiments considering soil moisture variability at two discrete levels – wet and dry – rather than as a continuously varying environmental gradient. Here we used experimental and statistical methods based on function-valued traits to explore responses to a continuous soil moisture gradient in physiological and morphological traits in two species and five genotypes each of the model grass Brachypodium. We find that most traits exhibit non-linear responses to soil moisture variability. We also observe differences in the shape of these non-linear responses between traits, species, and genotypes. Emergent phenomena arise from this variation including changes in trait correlations and evolutionary constraints as a function of soil moisture. These results point to the importance of considering non-linearity in plant-water relations to understand plastic and evolutionary responses to changing climates.