The niche as a changeable entity: phenotypic plasticity in community ecology

Schiffers, K. et al. 2011. Root plasticity buffers competition among plants: theory meets experimental data. Ecology. 92:3.

Ashton et al. 2010. Niche complementarity due to plasticity in resource use: plant partitioning of chemical N forms. Ecology. 91:11.

Nearly all explanations for coexistence in communities focus on differences between species. The scale of these differences may occur over large temporal (e.g. evolutionary history, phylogenetic relationships) or spatial scales (e.g. environmental tolerances), or at the scale of the individual. In plants, interactions at the local scale are given particular attention, including interactions mediated by trait differences between species. At finer scales still, there has been recent focus on differences between individuals of the same species, whether they are driven by genotypic differences (link) or plastic changes in individual phenotypes.

From Ashton et al. 2010

Phenotypic plasticity can be defined as phenotypic differences among individuals of the same genotype that occur in response to an environmental cue. The ability of plant species to alter their usage of resources, for example, has clear relevance to resource partitioning among species, since a given individual could adaptively take advantage of alternate resources in response to their particular competitive environment. In such a case, an individual’s realized niche is a function of phenotypic changes in response to the biotic and abiotic environment and thus physiologically-determined. This is in contrast to the usual approach to species’ niches, where physiological constraints are considered to determine a species’ fundamental niche. Although the plant literature shows clear examples of phenotypic plasticity among plants, including in response to competition (for example, perception of light quality leading to changes in growth form), the topic usually receives only passing mention in the community ecology literature.

The number of papers addressing questions of coexistence and competition through the lens of phenotypic plasticity is slowly rising.

From Schiffer et al. 2011, Lithium uptake is
significantly higher on the non-competitor side

A couple of papers from the last few years provide tantalizing glimpses into the possible contribution of plasticity to coexistence. In Schiffers et al. (2011), the authors use experimental and modeling approaches to test whether root uptake can change in response to the proximity of competitors. In the experimental study, the authors looked at the uptake of lithium (a stable nutrient that will be taken up in the place of potassium) by Bromus hordeaceus. They planted pairs of B. hordeaceus  at varying distances apart and then injected lithium into the soil at different differences from the focal plant. They found that lithium uptake was significantly higher on the non-competitor side of the focal plant than on the competitor side, suggesting that plastic changes in resource uptake occurred in response to competitor proximity. Modelling results from the same study suggest that plasticity may allow individuals minimize competitive pressure by making changes in belowground architecture, thereby using available space more efficiently.

Ashton et al. (2010) take a similar approach, looking at how the uptake of nutrients (in this case three forms of nitrogen (N)) varies among species depending on their competitive environment. They explored the ways in which plasticity could lead to changes in the realized niche. In particular, they explored two hypotheses: that plants would exhibit niche preemption, where the inferior competitor switched to a different form of nitrogen in the presence of the superior competitor; or dominant plasticity, where plasticity actually enhances competitive ability.  The authors looked at 4 species, 3 common and 1 rare(r), in an alpine tundra community, isolating naturally occurring pairs of each combination of species. These ‘competitive arenas’ were isolated, and other species within the arena were removed. After a year, the authors added N¹⁵ tracers to each arena, in three forms (NH4+, NO3-, and glycine): these tracers would allow them to track the N once it was incorporated into the plant tissue. The plants were then harvested and the amount of each type of nitrogen in each was measured. Plant biomass was also recorded, and used to estimate the ‘competitive response’ (basically the ratio of biomass when grown with a competitor compared biomass to when grown solo). Their findings were rather neat: the 3 common plants experienced no negative effect on biomass from growing in competition with the rare plant, but the rare plant had much lower biomass when grown in the presence of any of the common plants. Further, while the common plants showed changes in the form of N they used when growing with the rare plant, the rare plant did not switch its N preference. The rare plant’s lack of plasticity in response to competition may relate to its lower biomass when grown with superior competitors, and ultimately its lower abundance.

Although limited, these studies hint at the role that phenotypic plasticity could play in interspecific interactions. Unfortunately plasticity may be difficult to measure in many contexts, particularly since variation within a species can be attributed to genetic differences or phenotypic plasticity, and these factors must be teased apart. Further, there is an issue of differentiating the effects of resource limitations from ‘adaptive’ plastic changes in growth. While plants are relatively tractable for these types of studies (they’re sessile, they use limited abiotic resources), other organisms are less explored for a reason.

What these studies can’t address is the question of ‘how important is phenotypic plasticity, really’? Reviews of coexistence mechanisms list numerous possible ways by which coexistence is facilitated among species. For plants especially, the limited number of resources required for survival has lead to great consideration of the possible niche axes over which species can differentiate themselves. Phenotypic plasticity's contribution to coexistence may be that it provides another way by which plants can partition resources at very fine scales. And if nothing else, such results provide further evidence that variation within species may be an important component of coexistence.

Thanks to Kelly Carscadden for discussions on the topic.