Rethinking the relationship between desiccation-tolerant vascular plants and water deficit

ABSTRACT

Background

Water deficit is one of the main drivers of plant mortality and is projected to be more critical owing to climate change. Because desiccation-tolerant vascular plants (DT plants) can cope with water deficit, the paradigm emerges of their strong association with and restricted occurrence to locations characterised by water deficit conditions. However, this paradigm is not supported by earlier studies, hampering our understanding of the species – environment relationships and the vulnerability of DT plants to climate change.

Aims

We tested this paradigm and provide an evaluation of the vulnerability of DT plants to climate change.

Methods

We estimated the diversity and distribution of DT plants along water deficit gradients and assessed species vulnerability to climate change from a climatic perspective and over broad phylogenetic and macroecological scales.

Results

The diversity and distribution of DT plants were neither associated with, nor restricted to, locations characterised by water deficits. Species with narrow niche breadth and poikilochlorophylly might be the most vulnerable to climate change.

Conclusions

Our findings suggest that the desiccation events DT plants undergo are promoted by topo-edaphic conditions rather than by climate. We suggest that ecologically restricted species and those with a poikilochlorophyllous strategy should be prioritised for conservation.

KEYWORDS:

• Conservation
• drought
• macroecology
• phylogenetic diversity
• resurrection plants; species–environment relationship; species richness
• vulnerability to climate change

Acknowledgments

We deeply thank Andressa Fraga, Bianca Zorger, Helena Roland, Julius Köhler, Mandar Datar, Nadja Biedinger, Raissa Freitas, Yan Moraes, and Yan Nunes for the valuable discussions. We also would like to express our gratitude to the reviewers for their thoughtful and insightful comments on our study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/17550874.2024.2328832

Additional information

Funding

LB was supported by the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD) [Grant number Fund. prog. n. 57440921]; BP was supported by Fundação Carlos Chagas Filho de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (FAPERJ) [Grant number E-26/200.401/2019]; and LFAP was supported by Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) [Grant number 88887.569558/2020-00], Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) [Grant number 150683/2022-7], and Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de Minas Gerais (FAPEMIG) [Grant number APQ-02049-21].

Notes on contributors

Luiz Bondi

Luiz Bondi’s research interests are in functional ecology, macroecology, and biogeography of tropical plants.

Beatriz Prado

Beatriz Prado-Monteiro is a master’s student interested in understanding key processes driving metacommunity dynamics and community assembly across multiple scales through a theoretical approach.

Luiza F. A. de Paula

Luiza F. A. de Paula is a Postdoctoral Fellow. The major theme of her research is to understand ecological determinants of plant species diversity on terrestrial islands such as inselbergs.

Bruno H. P. Rosado

Bruno H. P. Rosado is an Adjunct Professor focusing on functional ecology, ecophysiology and community assembly.

Stefan Porembski

Stefan Porembski is a Professor interested on the floristic and ecology of vegetation islands occurring on inselbergs worldwide.