Abstract

This review synthesizes studies of grassland phenology and associations with plant resource-investment tradeoffs, functional traits, environmental and genetic regulators, genome size (GS), and management practices of nitrogen (N) fertilization, grazing, and mowing. Afterwards, the following five knowledge gaps were identified: (i) there is a lack of clarity of constraints of resource acquisition and allocation strategies, which constitute the plant economics spectrum, on herbaceous species vegetative and reproductive phenology; (ii) evidence is lacking for the tuning of phenology by functional traits via coordination of niche dimensionality and nutrient complementarity in species with contrasting community dominance; (iii) the role of keystone regulatory genes, such as AIL1, FDL1, ABI3, FT, and FRIGIDA, on phenology under contrasting environmental conditions (temperature, water, photoperiod) require confirmation; (iv) there is an urgent need to quantify trait-based and resource-partitioning links between GS and phenology to improve understanding of species coexistence; and (v) effects of N fertilization, grazing and mowing on phenological stages of coexisting species and growing season length, through impacts on inter-specific functional traits, light competition, pollination-syndromes, and carbon-investment economics are unclear. Thus, this review has identified areas of research that need to improve model predictions of the direction and magnitude of plant community responses and evolutionary mechanisms under global environmental change.

摘要

本综述综合了草原物候学以及与植物资源投资权衡、功能性状、环境和遗传调节因子、基因组大小 (GS) 以及氮 (N) 施肥、放牧和割草管理实践的关系的研究。随后，确定了以下五个知识差距：（i）构成植物经济学范围的资源获取和分配策略对草本物种营养和繁殖物候学的限制缺乏明确性；(ii) 缺乏证据表明，通过协调生态位维度和具有对比群落优势的物种的营养互补性，通过功能性状来调整物候；(iii) 关键调控基因的作用，例如AIL1、FDL1、ABI3、FT和FRIGIDA在对比环境条件（温度、水、光周期）下的物候方面需要确认；(iv) 迫切需要量化 GS 和物候学之间基于性状和资源分配的联系，以增进对物种共存的理解；(v)施氮肥、放牧和割草通过对种间功能性状、光竞争、授粉综合症和碳投资经济学的影响，对共存物种的物候阶段和生长季节长度的影响尚不清楚。因此，本综述确定了需要改进全球环境变化下植物群落反应方向和幅度以及进化机制的模型预测的研究领域。