Data for: Associations between leaf developmental stability, canalization and phenotypic plasticity in an architectural perspective

Associations between developmental stability, canalization and phenotypic
plasticity have been predicted, but rarely supported by direct evidence.
Architectural analysis may provide a more powerful approach to finding
correlations among these mechanisms in plants. To investigate the
relationships among the three mechanisms in architectural perspective, we
subjected plants of Abutilon theophrasti to three densities, measured and
calculated fluctuating asymmetry (FA), coefficients of variation (CV) and
plasticity (PI) of three leaf traits, to analyze the correlations among
these variables. As density increased, mean leaf size, petiole length and
angle of most layers and mean leaf FA of some layers decreased (at both
stages), CV of petiole angle increased (at day 50), and PI of petiole
length and angle across all layers decreased (at day 70); leaf FA and CV
of traits generally increased with higher layers at all densities. At both
stages, there were more positive correlations between FA and CV at lower
vs. high densities; at day 50, little correlation of plasticity with FA or
CV was found; at day 70, more positive correlations between FA and PI
occurred for response to high vs. low density than for response to medium
vs. low density, and more positive correlations between CV and PI occurred
at lower vs. high densities. Results suggested that developmental
instability, decreased canalization and plasticity can be cooperative and
the relationships between decreased canalization and plasticity are more
likely to be positive if decreased canalization is due to vibrant growth
rather than stressful effects. The relationships of plasticity with
developmental instability differed from its relationship with decreased
canalization in the way of variation. Decreased canalization should be
more beneficial for possible plasticity in the future, while canalization
may result from already-expressed plasticity.