Professor F. Stuart Chapin II states that “All plants respond to stress of many types in basically the same way”. In his secondary literature article, ‘Integrated response of plants to stress’, 1991, Dr. Chapin II explains that due to the lack of optimal conditions for plant growth, all plants respond to stress in different ways. As a result, plants experience either reduced growth rate or a decline in the potential of resource acquisition. As this is the case, plants that are adapted to infertile soil might have a slow growth even during optimal conditions. This is because plants allocate the majority of the resources to functions such as defense or storage (increase survivorship) rather than growth.
The common factor that all of these physiological responses to stress have, is that plants have a centralized mechanisms for stress management. This centralized stress response system is controlled by hormones and involves integrated changes in nutrients, water, carbon, and hormonal balance of plants. Some examples of how this centralized system works include nutrient uptake and mobilization. In the paper, F. Chapin states that some plants increase their nitrogen uptake absorption potential as measure per gram root. In other words, under low nutrient conditions, the stored energy and resources of plants are proportionally altered to be allocated to root growth. Moreover, withdrawal of tissue nitrogen stores from old leaves as a result of insufficient mobilization of nutrients for optimal growth rate. And finally, the last example has to do with photosynthesis, where the photosynthetic rate and stomatal conductance decrease under low nutrient supply.
Even thought there has been a lack of extensive research in this area, this hypothesis is supported by some studies that indicate that plants have special traits such as slow-growth, low photosynthetic rates, low capacity for nutrient uptake, and others.
III, F. S. (1991). Integrated Responses of Plants to Stress. BioScience Vol. 41 No. 1.
Applied Plant Ecology Winter 2020 