Root Systems of Individual Plants Worldwide 2022

The above- and below-ground sizes and shapes of plants strongly influence plant competition, community structure, and plant-environment interactions, but the plant size and shape across climate regimes remain incompletely understood. In this study I seek to understand how plant geometries respond to varying climates via trade-offs in shoot height and width, and root depth and spread. I more than doubled the Root Systems of Individual Plants (RSIP) database to contain 5,647 observations, to our knowledge the largest database describing the maximum rooting depth, lateral spread, and shoot size of terrestrial plants in the world. Shoot size and root system size strongly covary. Across climatic gradients woody plants show deeper-narrower root systems in arid climates and taller shoots in humid climates. Phylogeny greatly influences shoot size. Rooting depth is primarily influenced by climate seasonality and lateral root spread is strongly influenced by shoot size. Using our newly expanded global database I found that shoot size covaries strongly with rooting system size; however, these relationships are not static across the climate space, as the geometries of plants shift considerably.

植物的地上与地下尺寸和形态强烈影响植物竞争、群落结构以及植物-环境相互作用，但不同气候模式下的植物尺寸与形态特征仍未被完全阐明。本研究旨在通过协调枝条高度、宽度以及根系深度与扩展幅度之间的权衡关系，探究植物几何形态如何响应不同气候条件。本研究将单株植物根系系统（Root Systems of Individual Plants, RSIP）数据库扩充一倍有余，新增至5647条观测记录，据我们所知，这是目前全球规模最大的描述陆生植物最大根深、侧根扩展幅度以及地上部分尺寸的数据库。地上部分尺寸与根系系统尺寸呈现显著的协同变异关系。在气候梯度上，木本植物在干旱气候下拥有更深且更窄的根系系统，而在湿润气候下则具有更高大的地上枝条。系统发育对地上部分尺寸具有极强的调控作用。根深主要受气候季节性影响，而侧根扩展幅度则强烈受地上部分尺寸调控。依托我们新扩充的全球数据库，本研究发现地上部分尺寸与根系系统尺寸存在显著的协同变异关系；然而，这些关系并非在所有气候空间中都保持恒定，因为植物的几何形态会随环境发生显著改变。