Reproductive output
The effect of soil warming on reproductive output was generally negative
regardless of germination strategy. Warming reduced the number of
inflorescences produced and the number of viable infructescences per
plant across strategies (Fig. 1, Fig. 3a and 3b, Table 1). Overall,
there was also a significant reduction in the total number of plants
flowering (Fig. 4, Table 1) under warmed conditions.
Individual seed mass varied among germination strategies with seed of
the immediate strategy being lightest and staggered being heaviest, but
warming did not result in any change in seed mass (Fig. 1, Fig. 3c,
Table 1). Compared to the field collected seed, mass of the seed
produced in the soil warming experiment was up to 1.2 mg per seed
heavier than the seed collected from the field (parent), except for
those exhibiting an immediate germination strategy, where seed mass
between field and experiment was constant (Fig. 3c).