@ARTICLE{TreeBASE2Ref26813, author = {George Anthony Verboom and William David Stock and Michael Dennis Cramer}, title = {Specialization to extremely low-nutrient soils limits the nutritional adaptability of plant lineages}, year = {2017}, keywords = {adaptation, ecological specialization, foliar stoichiometry, phylogenetic niche conservatism, speciation}, doi = {}, url = {http://}, pmid = {}, journal = {The American Naturalist}, volume = {}, number = {}, pages = {}, abstract = {Specialization to extreme selective situations promotes the acquisition of traits whose co-adaptive integration may compromise evolutionary flexibility and adaptability. We test this idea in the context of the foliar stoichiometry of plants native to the South African Cape. Where foliar concentrations of nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), potassium (K), calcium (Ca), magnesium (Mg) and sodium (Na) showed strong phylogenetic signal, as did the foliar ratios of these nutrients to P, this was not true of the corresponding soil values. In addition, although foliar traits were often related to soil values, the coefficients of determination were consistently low. These results identify foliar stoichiometry as having a strong genetic component, with variation in foliar nutrient concentrations, especially [P] and [K], being identified as potentially adaptive. Comparison of stoichiometric variation across 11 similarly-aged clades revealed consistently low foliar nutrient concentrations in lineages showing specialization to extremely low-nutrient fynbos heathlands. These lineages also display lower rates of evolution of these traits as well as a reduced tendency for foliar [P] to track soil [P]. Reduced evolutionary lability and adaptability in the nutritional traits of fynbos-specialist lineages may explain the floristic distinctness of the fynbos flora and also implies a reduced scope for edaphically-driven ecological speciation. } }

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