Intraspecific variation in response to warming across levels of organization: a test with Solidago altissima

Plant species, and the traits associated with them, can help buffer ecosystems to environmental perturbations. Few studies have examined whether within species variation, both among and within populations, can similarly buffer ecosystems to environmental perturbations, such as climatic warming, across levels of organization. Using a dominant plant species in the eastern US, Solidago altissima, we examined whether genotypes of the same species from both southern and northern latitude populations exhibited differential short-term responses to temperature at the cell, leaf, and plant level. At the cell level we quantified the production of reactive oxygen species (by-product of temperature stress) and total oxygen radical antioxidant capacity (which ameliorates temperature stress by-products). At the leaf and plant levels, we measured CO2 assimilation. Increasing temperatures had strong negative impacts on plant-level carbon gain, but weak impacts on cell-level antioxidant capacity. Southern latitude genotypes had greater total antioxidant capacity, but lower leaf-level carbon gain, than did northern genotypes under elevated temperature. At the plant level, northern and southern genotypes exhibited similar declines in carbon gain under elevated temperature, likely because total plant leaf area was higher for southern genotypes than northern genotypes, which compensated for their lower per unit area leaf-level carbon gain. Overall, short-term temperature-induced declines in carbon gain at the plant level may scale to reduce within species variation, both across and within populations, potentially altering ecosystem carbon cycling.