A whole‐plant economics spectrum including bark functional traits for 59 subtropical woody plant species

Abstract

1. The whole-plant economics spectrum (PES) refers to the trade-offs among the many plant functional traits that are commonly used as indicators of major adaptive strategies, thereby providing insights into plant distributions, ecosystem processes and evolution. However, there are few studies of what may be called the whole-PES that integrates bark, wood and leaf functional traits for different leaf types and growth habits (evergreen vs. deciduous species).2. To address this gap in our knowledge, 6 bark traits, 7 wood traits (including mechanical support and nutrient transport characteristics) and 12 leaf traits (including chemical, structural and physiological characteristics) of 59 representative subtropical woody species were examined using principal component analysis (PCA) to determine PES strategies.3. The economics spectra of bark (BES), wood (WES) and leaves (LES), and the entire PES indicated that major traits represent resource acquisition strategies and conservation strategies clustering on the opposite ends of the PCA axis. A significant correlation was observed among the 25 functional traits. The data indicated that N and P nutrient levels were at the hub of BES, WES, LES and PES interrelationships. Evergreen and deciduous species had different WES and LES, and thus PES resource acquisition strategies. With the exception of the BES, evergreen species clustered on the conservative side, whereas deciduous species clustered on the acquisitive side. Synthesis.The PES presented here informs our understanding of whole-plant responses to environmental differences, particularly regarding the role of N and P traits at the whole-plant level. It also reveals and further supports the notion that evergreen and deciduous species, respectively, manifest conservative and acquisitive strategies, further informing our understanding of species biodiversity maintenance.

Climate factors determine the utilization strategy of forest plant resources at large scales

“…Numerous studies have found that plant resource utilization strategies are complex due to their regulation by a combination of environmental factors ( Huang et al, 2021 ; Wang et al, 2022 ). Exploring the distribution patterns of key leaf functional traits at large scales is of great ecological importance to quantify the effects of environmental conditions on plant resource utilization strategies ( Li et al, 2022 ). Based on field survey data from 163 sites in China, we sought to identify the key drivers affecting leaf resource utilization strategies at different vegetative levels in forest communities.…”

Changing gears along 1050 m-3070m: shifting plant leaf anatomical strategic spectra of 286 plants in the eastern Qinghai-Tibet Plateau

“…( 2022) of the study found that the temperature rise, is lower than that of leaf area, chlorophyll content and stomatal density and stomatal area, belongs to the typical type of quick investment return, in contrast to the results of this study, the reason may be that Zhu's (2018) sampling locations for the city, the plant's strategic strategy may be affected by air pollution in cities. In addition, Li (2021) confirmed in his experiment that air pollution would have an impact on strategic strategies. The experiment of low altitude for the arid valley area, water also is the main limiting factors of plant growth, Chen (2021) found that in low water plant to quickly get to adapt to the environment, similar to the results, showed that plant under the condition of water restrictions, tends to raise the utilization ratio of nutrient and moisture retention rate structure (Yang et al .…”

“…Leaf veins mainly play a supporting and transport role (Zhang et al .,2017). Studies on functional trait profiles of leaves are still mainly focused on leaf strategic profiles, which aim to study species ecological niche differentiation and coexistence mechanisms (Li et al ., 2021), and there are few studies on the strategic profiles among different tissues of the same organ of plants.…”

Stem Trait Spectra Underpin Multiple Functions of Temperate Tree Species

“…Both across and within these taxa, the associations between multiple wood and bark traits indicate that a conservative-acquisitive stem strategy spectrum is found (cf. Li et al, 2021 ). A stem trait spectrum is also found for each stem compartment.…”