ArticleNature ecology & evolution2021
Root traits explain plant species distributions along climatic gradients yet challenge the nature of ecological trade-offs.
Article in Nature ecology & evolution, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 32 papers.
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32 citing papers in PubMed, 177 citations in OpenAlex.
- Molecular-level traits of root exudates in tropical forest trees reflect nitrogen-fixation strategy and phenological shifts.The New phytologist · 2026Article
- On the relationship between root economics and plant hydraulic traits.The New phytologist · 2026Article
- Latitudinal patterns and environmental correlates of plant root exudation.Nature ecology & evolution · 2026Article
- Environmental "knees" and "wiggles" as strong stabilizers of species' range limits set by interspecific competition.PLoS computational biology · 2026Article
- Informing spatial conservation prioritization with species' traits.Conservation biology : the journal of the Society for Conservation Biology · 2026Article
- The overlooked role of root water content in the root economics space.Nature plants · 2026Article
- Climate change drives convergent evolution of root traits on Sky Island climate relicts.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Traits and functions of alpine plant communities respond strongly but not always sufficiently to in situ climate change.The New phytologist · 2026Article
- Crowdsourced biodiversity monitoring fills gaps in global plant trait mapping.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Simulating phenolic acid input enhances rice phosphorus uptake by increasing the relative abundance ofFrontiers in microbiology · 2026Article
- Dryland herbs coordinate leaf protection, absorptive root morphology and lateral-root proliferation along aridity gradients.Frontiers in plant science · 2026Article
- Temperature and plant-available soil phosphorus drive intraspecific variation in plant economic traits of Schima superba across an elevation gradient.Annals of botany · 2025Article
- Rooting for function: community-level fine-root traits relate to many ecosystem functions.The New phytologist · 2025Article
- The latitudinal pattern of fine root intraspecific trait variation among species in plant communities.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Transcriptomic Temperature Stress Responses Show Differentiation Between Biomes for Diverse Plants.Genome biology and evolution · 2025Article
- Elevational variation in anatomical traits of the first-order roots and their adaptation mechanisms.Plant diversity · 2025Article
- Heating up the roof of the world: tracing the impacts ofNational science review · 2025Review
- MaxEnt-based evaluation of climate change effects on the habitat suitability ofFrontiers in plant science · 2025Article
- Habitat-driven ecological strategies shape Chinese pine functional traits and rhizosphere metabolites in Qinling Mountains, China.Frontiers in plant science · 2025Article
- Anatomical traits explain drought response of seedlings from wet tropical forests.Ecology and evolution · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
41 authors at 20 institutions in 15 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Ecological theory is built on trade-offs, where trait differences among species evolved as adaptations to different environments. Trade-offs are often assumed to be bidirectional, where opposite ends of a gradient in trait values confer advantages in different environments. However, unidirectional benefits could be widespread if extreme trait values confer advantages at one end of an environmental gradient, whereas a wide range of trait values are equally beneficial at the other end. Here, we show that root traits explain species occurrences along broad gradients of temperature and water availability, but model predictions only resembled trade-offs in two out of 24 models. Forest species with low specific root length and high root tissue density (RTD) were more likely to occur in warm climates but species with high specific root length and low RTD were more likely to occur in cold climates. Unidirectional benefits were more prevalent than trade-offs: for example, species with large-diameter roots and high RTD were more commonly associated with dry climates, but species with the opposite trait values were not associated with wet climates. Directional selection for traits consistently occurred in cold or dry climates, whereas a diversity of root trait values were equally viable in warm or wet climates. Explicit integration of unidirectional benefits into ecological theory is needed to advance our understanding of the consequences of trait variation on species responses to environmental change.
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