Variation in δ 13 C and δ 15 N within and among plant species in the alpine tundra

• Main Authors: Spasojevic, Marko J., Weber, Sören
• Format: Other Non-Article Part of Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: Taylor & Francis 2021
• Subjects: Genetics; FOS Biological sciences; Evolutionary Biology; 59999 Environmental Sciences not elsewhere classified; FOS Earth and related environmental sciences; Ecology; 69999 Biological Sciences not elsewhere classified; Plant Biology; 60506 Virology; Tundra
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.17297595.v1; https://tandf.figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/Variation_in_sup_13_sup_C_and_sup_15_sup_N_within_and_among_plant_species_in_the_alpine_tundra/17297595/1

Ratios of carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) stable isotopes in plants are important indicators of intrinsic water use efficiency and N acquisition strategies. Here, we examined patterns of inter- and intraspecific variations and phylogenetic signal in foliar δ 13 C and δ 15 N for 59 alpine tundra plant species, stratifying our sampling across five habitat types. Overall, we found that variation in both δ 13 C and δ 15 N mirrored well-known patterns of water and nitrogen limitation among habitat types and that there was significant intraspecific trait variation in both δ 13 C and δ 15 N for some species. Lastly, we only found a strong signal of phylogenetic conservatism in δ 13 C in two habitat types and no phylogenetic signal in δ 15 N. Our results suggest that although local environmental conditions do play a role in determining variation in δ 13 C and δ 15 N among habitat types, there is considerable variation within and among species that is only weakly explained by shared ancestry. Taken together, our results suggest that considering local environmental variation, intraspecific trait variation, and shared ancestry can help with interpreting isotope patterns in nature and with predicting which species may be able to respond to rapidly changing environmental conditions.