Functional traits are increasingly used to understand the ecology of plants and to predict their responses to global changes. Unfortunately, trait data are unavailable for the majority of plant species. The lack of trait data is especially prevalent for hard-to-measure traits and for tropical plant species, potentially due to the many inherent difficulties of working with species in remote, hyperdiverse rainforest systems. The living collections of botanic gardens provide convenient access to large numbers of tropical plant species and can potentially be used to quickly augment trait databases and advance our understanding of species' responses to climate change. In this review, we quantitatively assess the availability of trait data for tropical versus temperate species, the diversity of species available for sampling in several exemplar tropical botanic gardens and the validity of garden-based leaf and root trait measurements. Our analyses support the contention that the living collections of botanic gardens are a valuable scientific resource that can contribute significantly to research on plant functional ecology and conservation.This article is part of the theme issue ‘Biological collections for understanding biodiversity in the Anthropocene’.
Functional traits are increasingly used to understand the ecology of plants and to predict their responses to global changes. Unfortunately, trait data are unavailable for the majority of plant species. The lack of trait data is especially prevalent for hard-to-measure traits and for tropical plant species, potentially owing to the many inherent difficulties of working with species in remote, hyperdiverse rainforest systems. The living collections of botanic gardens provide convenient access to large numbers of tropical plant species and can potentially be used to quickly augment trait databases and advance our understanding of species' responses to climate change. In this review, we quantitatively assess the availability of trait data for tropical versus temperate species, the diversity of species available for sampling in several exemplar tropical botanic gardens and the validity of garden-based leaf and root trait measurements. Our analyses support the contention that the living collections of botanic gardens are a valuable scientific resource that can contribute significantly to research on plant functional ecology and conservation.This article is part of the theme issue 'Biological collections for understanding biodiversity in the Anthropocene'.
Does convergent evolution always result from different lineages experiencing similar evolutionary dynamics? Hagey et al. () report the dynamics of adhesive performance evolution to be distinct in two lizard clades (anoles and geckos) despite independent convergence in adhesive toe pad structures, suggesting convergence can occur with dissimilar macroevolutionary dynamics. Convergent evolution, the evolution of similar features in distantly related species or groups, has long fascinated evolutionary biologists. For example, the striking similarity in the wings of bats and birds and the convergence of streamlined body shape among fish, dolphins, and ichthyosaurs have been avenues of great intrigue and captivation (Losos ). Due to their similarity, examples of phenotypic convergence are often hypothesized to have arisen through similar evolutionary dynamics or processes. However, there are many factors that can either constrain or enable phenotypic trait evolution, and the degree to which that is idiosyncratic among convergent lineages remains unclear. For example, if a lineage encounters an ecological opportunity, it may be provided with evolutionary access to a wide variety of ecological niches in which to diversify (Stroud and Losos ). Conversely, trait diversification may be constrained if that group is limited by its developmental, genetic, or biomechanical capabilities (Arnold ). The proliferation of well‐sampled, time‐calibrated phylogenies has enabled robust analyses of how phenotypic traits evolve and diversify through time and among lineages. Investigating how these opposing forces lead to remarkable convergence on the macroevolutionary landscape is important to understanding the nature and predictability of evolution.
In our coming adventures in the conquest of space we have more problems than the well-publicized one involved in merely getting off the earth; once in space, man has the problem of survival in an extremely hostile environment. We are adapted to life on this earth, not in space nor on any other planet of which we have knowledge. In our first frantic efforts to find solutions to the many problems attendant on this, we might reflect that once upon a time man was not adapted to live on the surface of this earth either. In order to survive on land, the many specialized cells which cooperate to make up modern man found it necessary to bring their environment with them when they crept ashore. These cells now live and replicate in a miniature sea in which the temperature and even the salinity are controlled at about the same values as those of the ocean in which they once lived.
