Initial temperature of seed germination as related to species occurrence along a temperature gradient

Summary Reproductive stages of life cycle are important for the explanation of distribution patterns of plant species at different scales, due to their extreme vulnerability to environmental conditions. Despite reported evidences that seed germination is related to habitat macroclimatic characterist...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Functional ecology 2015-01, Vol.29 (1), p.5-14
Main Authors: Rosbakh, Sergey, Poschlod, Peter
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Annual precipitation
climate change
Climatic conditions
Distribution patterns
Environmental conditions
Flowers & plants
Geographical distribution
Germination
Herbivores
initial temperature
Life cycles
Phylogeny
plant distribution
Plant physiological ecology
Plant species
Precipitation
Seed germination
Species
temperature gradient
Temperature gradients
Vegetation
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Summary:Summary Reproductive stages of life cycle are important for the explanation of distribution patterns of plant species at different scales, due to their extreme vulnerability to environmental conditions. Despite reported evidences that seed germination is related to habitat macroclimatic characteristics such as mean annual temperature (MAT) and precipitation, the role of this trait in controlling plant species distribution is not systematically and quantitatively evaluated yet. Using the data on seed germination along a temperature gradient for 49 species originating from contrasting climatic conditions, we test here whether initial temperature of seed germination (Tmin) is a direct correlate for predicting species distribution ranges along the temperature gradient. Our study reveals that Tmin is strongly negatively correlated with habitat temperature; among the studied species, Tmin clearly increased with decreasing MAT (r2 = 0·57, P 
ISSN:0269-8463
1365-2435
DOI:10.1111/1365-2435.12304