Trait Distributions (IMAGE)
Caption
The researchers spent two years examining a database of root traits consisting of 369 species from seven biomes (above): desert, grassland, Mediterranean, boreal, temperate, subtropical and tropical. Woody biomes are identified as shades of tan-to-yellow and non-woody biomes are in shades of green. The researchers found that plants in tropical (light orange) and subtropical biomes (beige) exhibited the largest range of root-tip diameters, from less than 0.25 millimeters up to 1 millimeter. These plants rely on soil fungi to provide nutrients, a similar strategy to that of Earth's earliest land plants. Plants in biomes characterized by poor soil, cold winters and/or infrequent precipitation have a narrow root-diameter range ideal for that environment. The desert (light green) and grassland (green) species studied all had root diameters of less than 0.25 millimeters.
Credit
Image courtesy of Lars Hedin and Mingzhen Lu, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
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