Shoot senescence in perennials of seasonal habitats: Comparative analysis of a large set of species

1. Senescence in plants is a hierarchical process affecting all their body parts from cells to whole organisms. Here we aim to fill the gap between the existing knowledge on leaf senescence and rapidly accumulating evidence on whole-plant senescence by addressing patterns and drivers of shoot senescence of herbaceous plants. This is a key process that determines photosynthetic gain late in the season and economy of soil-borne nutrients in seasonal climate.
2. We present a comparative study of 231 temperate species, ranging from spring ephemeroids to species senescing in late autumn, in a common botanical garden collection, thus minimizing difference in environmental drivers affecting individual species. We assessed senescence by measuring size decline in the later part of the season.
3. There were two main directions of variation in senescence trajectories: rate-date axis, separating early and fast senescing species from late and slowly senescing species, and the shape-asynchrony axis s...