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functional trait
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- Creator:
- Sutton, Etienne, Snapp, Sieglinde, Morrone, Vicki, and Blesh, Jennifer
- Description:
- Cover crops support ecosystem services in agroecosystems, but their performance can be highly variable. Functional trait ecology provides a useful framework for understanding variation in cover crop performance across different growing conditions. However, trait variation within species remains understudied compared to variation between species. In a two-year experiment, we measured nine functional traits for three cover crop species across 13 fields on working farms that spanned a gradient of soil health. Each field contained three cover crop treatments: a functionally diverse mixture of cereal rye (Secale cereale), crimson clover (Trifolium incarnatum), and dwarf-essex rapeseed (Brassica napus), and rye and clover monocrops. We evaluated i) the magnitude and relative importance of intraspecific and interspecific trait variation; ii) which soil health indicators best explained trait variation; and iii) whether interspecific interactions in mixture induced trait plasticity. Despite strong trait contrasts between species, intraspecific trait variation comprised 50% of total trait variation, on average. Trait variation was best explained by particulate organic matter nitrogen (POM N), soil phosphorus, pH, and permanganate oxidizable carbon for clover; by POM N and soil phosphorus for rye; and by POM N for dwarf essex. Rye and clover also showed significant trait plasticity in mixture relative to monocrop treatments. Our study demonstrates that intraspecific and interspecific trait variation are equally important, and that examining trait variation within species can improve the ability to predict cover crop outcomes. This information can inform cropping system design in distinct contexts to promote success of component species and complementary ecosystem functions.
- Keyword:
- cover crop, functional trait, soil health, mixture, species interactions, and intraspecific trait variation
- Citation to related publication:
- Sutton, E., Snapp, S., Morrone, V., & Blesh, J. (2025). Cover crop functional trait plasticity in response to soil conditions and interspecific interactions. Plant and Soil. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-025-07471-x
- Discipline:
- Science
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- Creator:
- Quirk, Zack J.
- Description:
- This repository is supplemental data (raw data) from my doctoral dissertation (2024). My research focused on how flowering plants respond to changing climates, not only with fossil plants in the geologic past, but also to make predictions on how living flowering plants will respond to human-derived climate change. We can examine these responses by examining functional traits, which are strongly associated with environmental and climatic factors. Studying functional traits in leaves is particularly helpful in this case, because they are a plant’s direct interaction with outside abiotic and biotic influences. I explored these plant-climate interactions in non-woody flowering plants (monocots) and ZIngiberaceae (the ginger family) because they are wildly understudied but have great ecological and agricultural importance. The research portion of my dissertation spanned four chapters (2-5). In Chapter 2, I examined the evolutionary and ecological impacts on a well-known leaf functional trait, vein length per area (VLA) in the entire monocot clade. This work revealed that monocot VLA was more associated with a plant’s environment and its habit (size/form), rather than overall evolutionary history. Chapters 3, 4, and 5 focused on Zingiberaceae. In Chapter 3, I tested leaf functional trait-climate relationships and dicot leaf trait reconstruction methods on fossil Zingiberaceae. I found that methods used to reconstruct leaf area and leaf mass area (important leaf functional traits) in fossil dicots were not comparable for use with Zingiberaceae, and likely other monocots. Leaf venation traits, including VLA and two new traits vein thickness (VT) and distance between veins, were largely driven by changes in temperature, which may provide useful information on past plant-climate interactions. In Chapter 4 I explored leaf functional trait response to elevated temperature and [CO2] in two species of living Zingiberaceae. Venation traits were largely driven by temperature, while stomatal and leaf mass traits were strongly associated with both temperature and [CO2]. This work provided potential implications for how living flowering plants may respond to anthropogenic climate change impacts and possibly offer a plant physiology model for fossil gingers, one that is not attainable with fossils. Lastly in Chapter 5 I focused on plant climate niches across the last 100 million years and explored differences in niche expansion and contraction in woody (Metasequoia sp.) and herbaceous (Zingiberaceae) plants. This work revealed that differences in climate niches are largely due to plant growth and dispersal strategies. My results call into question assumptions made for plant-based paleoclimate reconstruction methods, and recommend further training of these methods with additional plant groups. This dissertation provides new insight on living and fossil plant-climate interactions of monocot flowering plants, and lays the foundation for future research.
- Keyword:
- paleobotany, monocot, leaf, functional trait, and fossil
- Discipline:
- Science