Does genotypic diversity of Hydrocotyle vulgaris affect CO2 and CH4 fluxes?

Jia-Tao Zhu; Wei Xue; Jun-Qin Gao; Qian-Wei Li; Wen-Han Yu; Fei-Hai Yu

doi:10.3389/fpls.2023.1272313

Does genotypic diversity of Hydrocotyle vulgaris affect CO₂ and CH₄ fluxes?

Front Plant Sci. 2023 Oct 9:14:1272313. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2023.1272313. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Jia-Tao Zhu¹, Wei Xue², Jun-Qin Gao^{1

3}, Qian-Wei Li¹, Wen-Han Yu², Fei-Hai Yu²

Affiliations

¹ School of Ecology and Nature Conservation, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing, China.
² Institute of Wetland Ecology & Clone Ecology/Zhejiang Provincial Key Laboratory of Evolutionary Ecology and Conservation, Taizhou University, Taizhou, Zhejiang, China.
³ The Key Laboratory of Ecological Protection in the Yellow River Basin of National Forestry and Grassland Administration, Beijing, China.

Abstract

Biodiversity plays important roles in ecosystem functions and genetic diversity is a key component of biodiversity. While effects of genetic diversity on ecosystem functions have been extensively documented, no study has tested how genetic diversity of plants influences greenhouse gas fluxes from plant-soil systems. We assembled experimental populations consisting of 1, 4 or 8 genotypes of the clonal plant Hydrocotyle vulgaris in microcosms, and measured fluxes of CO₂ and CH₄ from the microcosms. The fluxes of CO₂ and CO₂ equivalent from the microcosms with the 1-genotype populations of H. vulgaris were significantly lower than those with the 4- and 8-genotype populations, and such an effect increased significantly with increasing the growth period. The cumulative CO₂ flux was significantly negatively related to the growth of the H. vulgaris populations. However, genotypic diversity did not significantly affect the flux of CH₄. We conclude that genotypic diversity of plant populations can influence CO₂ flux from plant-soil systems. The findings highlight the importance of genetic diversity in regulating greenhouse gas fluxes.

Keywords: Hydrocotyle vulgaris; clonal plant; diversity effect; genetic diversity; greenhouse gas.

Grants and funding

The author(s) declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant 42271107) and New Area Science and Technology Innovation Project (2022XACX1000).