Plasticity under climate manipulations
The Coefficient of Variation (i.e degree of plasticity) differed substantially among traits. CV was lowest inδ 13C (3-4%) and days to flowering (c. 10%), intermediate for diaspore weight, height, stomata density, leaf number at flowering and total biomass, and particularly high in reproductive allocation (c. 80%) and seed number (c. 100%) (Fig. 3). There was no apparent relation between plasticity and the probability of rapid evolution in the field as the three traits showing rapid evolution had low (days to flowering), intermediate (leaf number at flowering) and high plasticity (reproductive allocation), respectively.
Climate manipulations had overall little effect on plasticity. A tendency for increased plasticity in plants from dry manipulated plots compared to controls was found in diaspore weight (p=0.01) and marginally for days to flowering (p=0.06) (Table 3, Fig. 3). In vegetative biomass, plasticity was significantly increased in dry plots (p=0.03), but only in comparison to wet plots (Table 3, Fig. 3). The lack of any significant climate manipulation × site interaction showed that plasticity responded similarly in both sites (Fig. 3, Table 3).
Plasticity was significantly higher in the Mediterranean than the semi-arid site in four traits: days to flowering, height, reproductive allocation, seed number (Table 3, Fig. 3).