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BRIEF RESEARCH REPORT article

Front. Plant Sci.
Sec. Functional Plant Ecology
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpls.2024.1417721
This article is part of the Research Topic Multi- And Super-Disciplinary Approaches to Plant Si and Phytolith Research View all articles

Ecotypic differentiation of leaf silicon concentration in the grass Brachypodium hybridum along a rainfall gradient

Provisionally accepted
Susanne Kurze Susanne Kurze 1Jinyu Ouyang Jinyu Ouyang 1Florian Gade Florian Gade 2Ofir Katz Ofir Katz 3,4Joerg Schaller Joerg Schaller 1Johannes Metz Johannes Metz 2*
  • 1 Leibniz Center for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF), Müncheberg, Germany
  • 2 University of Hildesheim, Hildesheim, Lower Saxony, Germany
  • 3 Eilat Campus, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Eilat, Israel
  • 4 Dead Sea and Arava Science Center, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Ecotypic differentiation, reflected in substantial trait differences across populations, has been observed in various plant species distributed across aridity gradients. Nevertheless, ecotypic differentiation in leaf silicon concentration, known to alleviate drought stress in plants, remained hardly explored.Here, we provide a systematic test for ecotypic differentiation in leaf silicon concentration along two aridity gradients in the grass Brachypodium hybridum in Israel.Seed material was sampled in 15 sites along a macroclimatic aridity gradient (89 -926 mm mean annual rainfall) and from corresponding north (moister) and south (more arid) exposed slopes (microclimatic gradient) at similar altitudes (mean north: 381 m a.s.l., mean south: 385 m a.s.l.). Plants were subsequently grown under common conditions and their leaf silicon concentration was analysed.Leaf silicon concentration increased with increasing aridity across the macroclimatic gradient, but did not differ between north and south slopes. The higher leaf silicon concentrations under more arid conditions can enhance the ability of plants to cope with more arid conditions by two mutually not exclusive mechanisms: (i) withstanding drought by reducing water loss and increasing water uptake or (ii) escaping drought by facilitating fast growth. Our study highlights that leaf silicon concentration contributes to ecotypic differentiation in annual grasses along macroclimatic aridity gradients.

    Keywords: silicon concentrations, Rainfall gradient, intraspecific variation, Mediterranean rangelands, local adaptation, Slope exposure, ecotypes, Brachypodium hybridum

    Received: 15 Apr 2024; Accepted: 07 Oct 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Kurze, Ouyang, Gade, Katz, Schaller and Metz. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Johannes Metz, University of Hildesheim, Hildesheim, 31141, Lower Saxony, Germany

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