PGT01 Konza prairie grass species trait

Evolutionary history plays a key role driving patterns of trait variation across plant species. For scaling and modeling purposes, grass species are typically organized into C3 versus C4 plant functional types (PFTs). PFT groupings may obscure important functional differences among species. Rather, grouping grasses by evolutionary lineage may better represent grass functional diversity. We measured 11 structural and physiological traits in situ from 75 grass species within the North American tallgrass prairie. We tested whether traits differed significantly among photosynthetic pathways or lineages (tribe) in annual and perennial grass species. We hypothesized that tribe would be the best predictor of traits, more so than photosynthetic pathway. We further hypothesized that there would be substantial variation of traits in species among the seven C4 lineages represented at our site.