A new paleo-leaf economic proxy reveals a shift in ecosystem function in response to global warming at the onset of the Triassic periodShow others and affiliations
2017 (English)In: Nature Plants, ISSN ISSN 2055-0278, Vol. 3, article id 17104Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]
Climate change is likely to have altered the ecological functioning of past ecosystems, and is likely to alter functioning in the future; however, the magnitude and direction of such changes are difficult to predict. Here we use a deep-time case study to evaluate the impact of a well-constrained CO2-induced global warming event on the ecological functioning of dominant plant communities. We use leaf mass per area (LMA), a widely used trait in modern plant ecology, to infer the palaeoecological strategy of fossil plant taxa. We show that palaeo-LMA can be inferred from fossil leaf cuticles based on a tight relationship between LMA and cuticle thickness observed among extant gymnosperms. Application of this new palaeo-LMA proxy to fossil gymnosperms from East Greenland reveals significant shifts in the dominant ecological strategies of vegetation found across the Triassic–Jurassic transition. Late Triassic forests, dominated by low-LMA taxa with inferred high transpiration rates and short leaf lifespans, were replaced in the Early Jurassic by forests dominated by high-LMA taxa that were likely to have slower metabolic rates. We suggest that extreme CO2-induced global warming selected for taxa with high LMA associated with a stress-tolerant strategy and that adaptive plasticity in leaf functional traits such as LMA contributed to post-warming ecological success.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
London: Nature Publishing Group, 2017. Vol. 3, article id 17104
Keywords [en]
Climate-change ecology, forest ecology, palaeoecology, plant physiology
National Category
Other Earth Sciences
Research subject
Ecosystems and species history
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:nrm:diva-2610DOI: 10.1038/nplants2017.104.OAI: oai:DiVA.org:nrm-2610DiVA, id: diva2:1163725
Note
Research funded by Science Foundation Ireland PI grant (11/P1/1103);
University College Dublin (SF1036);
Royal Irish Academy;
Australian Research Council (FT100100910);
Macquarie University.
2017-12-072017-12-072025-02-07Bibliographically approved