Testing the environmental warming responses of Brachyscome daisy species using a common garden approach

As temperatures increase in a warming world, there will be different responses among related plant species, with some species able to increase growth rate under warmer conditions and others less likely. Here, we identify survival and growth parameters in a group of 19 related Australian daisies from the genera Brachyscome and Pembertonia when exposed to higher soil temperature, focusing particularly on species from the alpine environment. We used a common garden approach to measure growth and survival under warming. We tested for the effects of evolutionary history by investigating phylogeny and testing for a phylogenetic signal, and for the effects of ecological history by considering climatic variables associated with species distributions in their native range. Evolutionary history did not have a detectable effect on warming responses. While there was a moderate signal for plant growth in the absence of warming, there was no signal for growth changes in response to warming, despite variability among species to warming that ranged from positive to negative growth responses. There was no strong effect of climate context, as species that showed a positive response to warming did not necessarily originate from hotter environments. In fact, several species from hot environments grew relatively poorly when exposed to higher soil temperature. However, species endemic to alpine areas were less likely to benefit from warming than widespread species. We found a strong phylogenetic signal for climate history, in that closely related species tend to occur in areas with similar annual variability in precipitation. Species differences in response to soil warming were variable and difficult to link to climate conditions except for the poor response of alpine endemics. There was no significant association between survival and warming responses of species. However, as some species showed weak growth responses, this may reduce their fitness into the future.