PhD defence

Phenotypic plasticity and genetic adaptation of plant functional traits on global scales

• J. Zhou

Date

Wednesday 4 September 2024

Time

11:30 - 12:30 hour

Address

Academy Building
Rapenburg 73
2311 GJ Leiden

Supervisor(s)

• Prof.dr.ir. P.M. van Bodegom
• dr. E. Cieraad

Summary

 

In the context of climate change, it is important to determine whether certain plant species can adapt to future climates to avoid extinction. Plants adapt to different environmental conditions, including climate change, by varying their functional traits, such as leaf size or photosynthetic rate. Some traits appear linked and vary together between species, suggesting they point to strategies plants use to manage resources. Traits can also vary between individuals of the same species, so-called intraspecific trait variation (ITV), and its extent varies between species. Our understanding of how and why these traits vary within species is still highly limited.
This dissertation uses newly compiled global databases of species’ ITV and one of its components: genetic adaptation rates. First, we investigate whether trait-trait relationships between species also occurred within species, which could confirm these relationships as true plant strategies. Then, we explored the drivers of the two components ITV: phenotypic plasticity, which allows plants to change in response to the environment, and genetic adaptation, which involves inherited changes. Each component conveys different benefits for a species adapting to a changing environment. By combining them, we can better understand plant species' adaptive capacity to climate change. Finally, we evaluated whether plants with different growth forms and from different biomes differed in their adaptive capacity to climate change.

PhD dissertations

Approximately one week after the defence, PhD dissertations by Leiden PhD students are available digitally through the Leiden Repository, that offers free access to these PhD dissertations. Please note that in some cases a dissertation may be under embargo temporarily and access to its full-text version will only be granted later.

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