Patterns of root intraspecific trait variability

基于植物性状的方法在生态学研究中越来越重要。在过去的几年里，科学家们也开始考虑种内性状变异（ITV）时，与基于性状的方法。ITV由种内或居群内的遗传变异和沿着环境梯度的表型可塑性组成。然而，这两个因素对总ITV的相对影响据我们所知从未被详细研究过。基于植物性状的研究的另一个不足之处是缺乏根系性状。特别是在研究土壤生态对植物、群落或生态系统性能的影响时，根系比传统测量的地上性状更有希望掌握更直接的信息。我们的目的是研究种内根性状变异及其组成部分的实验设置，从一个高度机械的方法，在气候室，在天然草地具有强大的小尺度土壤环境梯度的实地采样。我们将调查根ITV在一个草种（Arabiatherum elatius P.BEAUV）和一个杂类植物种（千里光L）从自然保护区Mallnow（勃兰登堡，德国）。我们将模拟几个土壤环境因素，包括干旱，pH值，营养缺乏和不同水平的土壤结构（在琼脂中），并测量从同一种群的种子培养的不同克隆的根性状表达。这将为我们提供有关不同土壤环境条件下根系性状表达的信息，并使我们能够量化自然种群中的遗传变异和表型可塑性。此外，我们还将通过试验联合收割机结合土壤环境因子研究根系性状表达的交互效应。在田间试验中，我们将在自然环境中对目标种群的土壤因子和性状表达进行采样。对实验克隆和田间取样的植物进行基因分型将使我们能够将我们对个体表型可塑性的知识与自然生态系统中的发生情况联合收割机结合起来。这种方法将使我们能够得出结论的相对数量的遗传变异和表型可塑性总ITV在不同水平的环境压力下发现在该领域。我们的目标是将我们的研究结果纳入生态位理论的框架，通过计算性状超体积和模拟ITV及其组件的影响。该项目将有助于更好地理解ITV的重要性，并支持将根性状纳入基于性状的生态学。

Plant trait-based approaches are becoming increasingly important in ecological research. During the last years, scientists have begun to also consider intraspecific trait variability (ITV) when working with trait-based approaches. ITV consists of genetic variation within the species or population and phenotypic plasticity along environmental gradients. Nevertheless, the relative impact of these two factors to total ITV has to our knowledge never been studied in detail. Another scarcity of plant trait based research is the lack of root traits. Especially when studying soil ecological effects on plant, community or ecosystem performance roots are promising to hold more direct information than traditionally measured aboveground traits. Our aim is to study intraspecific root trait variability and its components in an experimental setup ranging from a highly mechanistic approach in climate chambers to field sampling in a natural grassland with strong small scale soil environmental gradients. We will investigate root ITV in one grass species (Arrhenatherum elatius P.BEAUV) and one forb species (Achillea millefolium L) from the natural reserve Mallnow (Brandenburg, Germany). We will mimic several soil environmental factors including drought, pH, nutrient deficiency and soil structure with varying levels (in agar) and measure root trait expression on different clones cultivated from seeds of the same population. This will give us information about root trait expression under different soil environmental conditions and allow us to quantify both genetic variation as well as phenotypic plasticity within a natural population. Furthermore we will experimentally combine soil environmental factors to study interactive effects on root trait expression. In a field experiment we will sample soil factors and trait expression of the target population in the natural context. Genotyping of the experimental clones as well as the plants sampled in the field will allow us to combine our knowledge on individual phenotypic plasticity with occurrence in the natural ecosystem. This approach will enable us to draw conclusions about the relative amount of genetic variation and phenotypic plasticity on total ITV found under different levels of environmental stress in the field. We aim to incorporate our findings into the framework of ecological niche theory by calculating trait hypervolumes and modeling the effects of ITV and its components. This project will contribute to the ongoing process of better understanding the importance of ITV and support the incorporation of root traits into trait-based ecology.