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Good morning botanical community! Did you know that distantly related plants may converge to similar morphological features to colonize #high-mountain environments? (1/6)
This convergent #evolution is resulting from an adaptive response to similar ecological conditions. Conditions that can be summarized as “summer every day and winter every night” (Hedberg 1970: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2989783 ; https://doi.org/10.1002/ajb2.1290) (2/6)
First let’s see what is needed to survive in such environs, the most important strategy: grow slow, be small, like #cushion plants ( https://doi.org/10.2307/2446413 ; https://doi.org/10.3732/ajb.1000460; https://doi.org/10.3732/ajb.91.7.1147) (3/6)
Other well-known strategies are ‘defend what you have’ and ‘disperse as you can’ translated into #spiny plants with wind pollination and/or wind-dispersed seeds/fruits, like mountain #cacti or Espeletia ( https://doi.org/10.3732/ajb.94.8.1321; https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1537-2197.1989.tb15145.x) (4/6)
Even when you are a dwarf shrub, the mode of propagation is key to persist in #mountain communities. Vegetative reproduction and spread through clonal growth play an important role in many species ( https://doi.org/10.3732/ajb.1600229) (5/6)
Not all the #plants can cope with high-elevation, above treeline habitats, so who are the winners? Find this out on the next threads! (6/6)
