Phillips, O orcid.org/0000-0002-8993-6168 (2021) Leaf traits from stomata to morphology are associated with climatic and edaphic variables for dominant tropical forest evergreen oaks. Journal of Plant Ecology, 14 (6). pp. 1115-1127. ISSN 1752-9921
Abstract
Aims
Understanding variation and coordination of leaf traits at multiscales along elevational gradients can help predict the likely responses of dominant species to climate change. We seek to determine the extent to which variation in leaf stomatal, anatomical and morphological traits is associated with environmental factors, and whether ecological strategies of Cyclobalanopsis species shift with elevations.
Methods
In a tropical forest landscape in Jianfengling, South China, we determined leaf traits related to stomata, anatomy and morphology of six evergreen oak species (Cyclobalanopsis bambusaefolia, C. hui, C. patelliformis, C. fleuryi, C. tiaoloshanica and C. phanera) along a long elevational gradient (400–1400 m above sea level).
Important Findings
We found that stomatal density and stomatal pore index increased, whereas spongy mesophyll thickness to leaf thickness ratios decreased, significantly with elevation. The leaf area and leaf dry matter content increased and decreased, respectively, with elevation. Variations in stomatal, anatomical and morphological traits were mainly correlated to the mean annual temperature, mean annual sum precipitation and soil pH. At low and high elevations, the oak species exhibited strong stress tolerance combined with competition strategy, while they shifted toward more clearly the competitive strategy at intermediate elevations. And the changes in soil phosphorus concentration and soil pH along the elevation may drive the shift of ecological strategy. The results showed that the dominant oak species in tropical forests respond to environmental change by modulating traits at multiple levels, from that of the individual cell, through tissue and up to the whole leaf scale.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © The Author(s) 2021. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Botanical Society of China. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
Keywords: | elevational gradient, ecological strategy, leaf traits, oak species, tropical forest |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Environment (Leeds) > School of Geography (Leeds) > Ecology & Global Change (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 26 May 2021 11:27 |
Last Modified: | 30 Nov 2021 09:32 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Oxford University Press |
Identification Number: | 10.1093/jpe/rtab060 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:174366 |