Department of Population Ecology > 05. Ekologie a fylogeneze rostlinných vlastností

Department of Population Ecology

05. Ekologie a fylogeneze rostlinných vlastností

Ecology and phylogenetics of plant traits

Together with Jitka Klimešová (Dept. of Functional Ecology, Třeboň), we explore other dimensions of functional differentiation of species than those captured by plant economy spectrum, competition for light and dispersal capacity (the Leaf-Height-Seed differentiation). In particular, we study functional differentiation of clonal traits. We showed that these traits have better predictive power both for species abundance and distribution within habitats in the Central European flora and are essentially unrelated to the LHS differentiation. Clonality further acts as safeguard when sexual reproduction is impaired (by adverse conditions, pollinator limitation or intrinsically, e.g. by polyploidy). We perform comparative phylogenetic analyses of large species sets to determine both association of clonal traits with parameters of species niche along a number of gradients, and develop hypotheses on their evolution in response to changes in the species niche. In addition, we also study evolution of a wide range of other traits with the main focus on the evolution of dispersal traits on islands.