TY - JOUR
T1 - Trait-reproductive allocation pathways of different flowering groups under seasonal drought in alpine meadows
AU - Ding, Mingli
AU - Wei, Yao
AU - Li, Yuzhang
AU - Ma, Jianyu
AU - Zhang, Jingya
AU - Song, Jiangqin
AU - Liu, Huiying
AU - Wang, Hao
AU - Zhang, Zhenhua
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2025. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Institute of the Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Botanical Society of China. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. For commercial re-use, please contact reprints@oup.com for reprints and translation rights for reprints. All other permissions can be obtained through our RightsLink service via the Permissions link on the article page on our site—for further information please contact journals.permissions@oup.com.
PY - 2026/6
Y1 - 2026/6
N2 - Climate change intensifies seasonal droughts in alpine meadows on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, impacting the adaptability of key plant functional groups. However, how plant functional groups with different flowering phenologies adjust their reproductive allocation through trait-based strategies remains poorly understood. This study examined the effects of spring, summer, and whole growing season drought on reproductive strategies of early-spring flowering (ESF) and mid-summer flowering (MSF) plant functional groups. Results revealed that spring drought significantly reduced the reproductive efficiency of MSF plants, whereas summer drought resulted in higher reproductive efficiency compared to spring drought. ESF plants exhibited greater resilience than MSF plants across all seasonal drought treatments, highlighting the advantage of their drought-avoidance strategy. Under whole growing season drought, ESF plants adopted conservative resource-use strategies, including decreased specific leaf area (SLA) and increased leaf carbon to nitrogen ratio (C/N), carbon to phosphorus ratio (C/P), and leaf dry matter content (LDMC). In contrast, MSF plants experienced phosphorus (P) limitation and height reductions. Notably, whole growing season drought induced interannual cumulative effects in MSF plants, such as increased LDMC and decreased SLA, indicating higher morphological plasticity. Furthermore, ESF plants enhanced flower allocation through both increased P availability and C/N (nutrient-sensitive strategy). For MSF plants, flower allocation was directly regulated by leaf nitrogen content (LNC), indirectly enhanced through resource reallocation from decreased plant height (morphology-integrated strategy). This study elucidates the covariation patterns between functional trait and reproductive allocation in ESF and MSF plants under seasonal drought, providing a mechanistic framework for predicting alpine ecosystems responses to future droughts.
AB - Climate change intensifies seasonal droughts in alpine meadows on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, impacting the adaptability of key plant functional groups. However, how plant functional groups with different flowering phenologies adjust their reproductive allocation through trait-based strategies remains poorly understood. This study examined the effects of spring, summer, and whole growing season drought on reproductive strategies of early-spring flowering (ESF) and mid-summer flowering (MSF) plant functional groups. Results revealed that spring drought significantly reduced the reproductive efficiency of MSF plants, whereas summer drought resulted in higher reproductive efficiency compared to spring drought. ESF plants exhibited greater resilience than MSF plants across all seasonal drought treatments, highlighting the advantage of their drought-avoidance strategy. Under whole growing season drought, ESF plants adopted conservative resource-use strategies, including decreased specific leaf area (SLA) and increased leaf carbon to nitrogen ratio (C/N), carbon to phosphorus ratio (C/P), and leaf dry matter content (LDMC). In contrast, MSF plants experienced phosphorus (P) limitation and height reductions. Notably, whole growing season drought induced interannual cumulative effects in MSF plants, such as increased LDMC and decreased SLA, indicating higher morphological plasticity. Furthermore, ESF plants enhanced flower allocation through both increased P availability and C/N (nutrient-sensitive strategy). For MSF plants, flower allocation was directly regulated by leaf nitrogen content (LNC), indirectly enhanced through resource reallocation from decreased plant height (morphology-integrated strategy). This study elucidates the covariation patterns between functional trait and reproductive allocation in ESF and MSF plants under seasonal drought, providing a mechanistic framework for predicting alpine ecosystems responses to future droughts.
KW - Qinghai-Tibet Plateau
KW - alpine grassland
KW - flowering functional group
KW - functional traits
KW - reproductive allocation
KW - resource-use strategy
KW - seasonal drought
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/105039469419
U2 - 10.1093/jpe/rtaf189
DO - 10.1093/jpe/rtaf189
M3 - 文章
AN - SCOPUS:105039469419
SN - 1752-9921
VL - 19
JO - Journal of Plant Ecology
JF - Journal of Plant Ecology
IS - 3
M1 - rtaf189
ER -
SDG 13 Climate Action