Meeting Abstract

S10-5   11:00 - 11:30  The evolution of material properties in relation to ecology in plants Higham, TE*; Schmitz, L; Niklas, KJ; University of California, Riverside; Claremont Colleges; Cornell University thigham@ucr.edu http://www.biomechanics.ucr.edu

Abiotic-biotic interactions have shaped organic evolution since life first began. Abiotic factors influence growth, survival, and reproductive success, whereas biotic responses to abiotic factors have changed the physical environment. This reciprocity is well-illustrated by land plants who begin and end their existence in the same location while growing in size over the course of years or even millennia, during which environment factors change over many orders of magnitude. A biomechanical, ecological, and evolutionary perspective reveals that plants have evolved greater rigidity, allowing for increases in body size and permitting acclimation to more physiologically and ecologically diverse and challenging habitats. A critical component of this evolutionary innovation is the extent to which mechanical perturbations have shaped plant form and function and how form and function have shaped ecological dynamics over the course of evolution. We examine, using phylogenetic comparative methods, the evolution of material properties across land plants in relation to ecological patterns. Key questions that we will address include 1) Do plants exhibit stronger stems in regions where tropical storms are most frequent? 2) What attributes of plants facilitate wide geographic and ecological distributions? 3) Do changes in the rate of material property evolution coincide with changes in ecological conditions?