Search research articles

ABOUT JoVE

Overview Leadership Blog JoVE Help Center

AUTHORS

Publishing Process Editorial Board Scope & Policies Peer Review FAQ Submit

LIBRARIANS

Testimonials Subscriptions Access Resources Library Advisory Board FAQ

RESEARCH

JoVE Journal Methods Collections JoVE Encyclopedia of Experiments Archive

EDUCATION

JoVE Core JoVE Business JoVE Science Education JoVE Lab Manual Faculty Resource Center Faculty Site

Terms & Conditions of Use

Related Concept Videos

Light Acquisition

Light Acquisition

In order to produce glucose, plants need to capture sufficient light energy. Many modern plants have evolved leaves specialized for light acquisition. Leaves can be only millimeters in width or tens of meters wide, depending on the environment. Due to competition for sunlight, evolution has driven the evolution of increasingly larger leaves and taller plants, to avoid shading by their neighbors with contaminant elaboration of root architecture and mechanisms to transport water and nutrients.

Adaptations that Reduce Water Loss

Adaptations that Reduce Water Loss

Though evaporation from plant leaves drives transpiration, it also results in loss of water. Because water is critical for photosynthetic reactions and other cellular processes, evolutionary pressures on plants in different environments have driven the acquisition of adaptations that reduce water loss.

Ecological Niches

Ecological Niches

All organisms have a position within an ecosystem. The complete set of living and nonliving factors—including food resources, climate, and terrain—that define the position of a given organism are collectively referred to as the organism’s ecological niche.

Formation of Species

Formation of Species

Speciation describes the formation of one or more new species from one or sometimes multiple original species. The resulting species are discrete from the parent species, and barriers to reproduction will typically exist. There are two primary mechanisms, speciation with and without geographic isolation—allopatric and sympatric speciation, respectively.

Morphogenesis

Morphogenesis

Plant morphogenesis—the development of a plant’s form and structure—involves several overlapping developmental processes, including growth and cell differentiation. Precursor cells differentiate into specific cell types, which are organized into the tissues and organ systems that make up the functional plant.

What is Biodiversity?

What is Biodiversity?

Biodiversity describes the variety of living things at multiple organizational levels: genetic, species and ecosystem diversity. Species diversity includes all branches of the evolutionary tree from single-celled prokaryotic organisms, bacteria, and archaea, to the eukaryotic kingdoms: plants; animals; fungi; and protists. To date, there have been about 1.75 million species identified, and new species are discovered every week.

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by

Same author

Disturbance regimes drive widespread plant range disequilibrium in Europe alongside climate change.

Nature ecology & evolution·2026

Same author

Beech latewood density as a proxy for temperature reconstruction.

Science advances·2026

Same author

Chemical Profile and Evaluation of the Growth-Inhibitory, Anti-Inflammatory, and Antioxidant Activity Potential of Polar Extracts of <i>Reseda alba</i> L. (Resedaceae).

Plants (Basel, Switzerland)·2026

Same author

Water Potential Isotherms Reveal Different but Coordinated Responses at Leaf and Root Levels Under Controlled Drought.

Physiologia plantarum·2026

Same author

Habitat-specific trends in taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic diversity in European plant communities over a century.

Nature communications·2026

Same author

Delayed plant genetic responses to forest edge dynamics and their conservation implications.

Conservation biology : the journal of the Society for Conservation Biology·2026

Search research articles

Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jul 1, 2025

Relating Stomatal Conductance to Leaf Functional Traits

Relating Stomatal Conductance to Leaf Functional Traits

Published on: October 12, 2015

Intraspecific variability of leaf form and function across habitat types.

Giacomo Puglielli¹, Alessandro Bricca², Stefano Chelli³

¹Departamento de Biología Vegetal y Ecología, Facultad de Biología, Universidad de Sevilla, Sevilla, Spain.

Ecology Letters

|March 8, 2024

Summary

Intraspecific trait variability (ITV) influences plant trait spaces by altering key axes and functional structure. However, these effects are context-dependent, varying with trait and habitat type.

Keywords:

functional diversity functional traits intraspecific trait variability leaf area leaf mass per unit of the leaf area plant strategies trait space

More Related Videos

Author Spotlight: Leaf Trait Analysis for Climate and Ecology Reconstruction in Modern and Ancient Plant Communities

Author Spotlight: Leaf Trait Analysis for Climate and Ecology Reconstruction in Modern and Ancient Plant Communities

Published on: October 25, 2024

Experimental Protocol for Manipulating Plant-induced Soil Heterogeneity

Experimental Protocol for Manipulating Plant-induced Soil Heterogeneity

Published on: March 13, 2014

Related Experiment Videos

Last Updated: Jul 1, 2025

Relating Stomatal Conductance to Leaf Functional Traits

Relating Stomatal Conductance to Leaf Functional Traits

Published on: October 12, 2015

Author Spotlight: Leaf Trait Analysis for Climate and Ecology Reconstruction in Modern and Ancient Plant Communities

Author Spotlight: Leaf Trait Analysis for Climate and Ecology Reconstruction in Modern and Ancient Plant Communities

Published on: October 25, 2024

Experimental Protocol for Manipulating Plant-induced Soil Heterogeneity

Experimental Protocol for Manipulating Plant-induced Soil Heterogeneity

Published on: March 13, 2014

Area of Science:

Ecology
Plant Biology
Trait-based Ecology

Background:

Trait-based ecology identifies plant adaptive strategies using trait spaces.
Intraspecific trait variability (ITV) is often overlooked in these analyses.
Understanding ITV's role is crucial for accurate ecological interpretations.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate the impact of intraspecific trait variability (ITV) on plant trait spaces.
To analyze how ITV affects the axes and functional structure of trait spaces.
To determine the context-dependency of ITV's effects across different traits and habitats.

Main Methods:

Utilized empirical ITV-level data for leaf form and function traits.
Analyzed data from 167 plant species across five distinct habitat types in the Italian peninsula.
Applied statistical methods to assess changes in trait space dimensions and variance.

Main Results:

ITV was found to rotate trait variation axes and increase explained variance within trait spaces.
ITV significantly affected the functional structure of the plant trait space.
The magnitude of ITV's effects was generally small and varied depending on the specific trait and habitat.

Conclusions:

Intraspecific trait variability plays a role in shaping plant trait spaces, but its influence is context-dependent.
Extrapolating ITV patterns across different traits and spatial scales requires caution.
The study provides a foundational framework for integrating ITV into future trait space analyses.