Joint control of plant ecological strategy by climate, regeneration mode, and ontogeny in Northeastern Chinese forests

Abstract

Research on how plant ecological strategies (competitive, stress‐tolerant, or ruderal) vary within species may improve our understanding of plant and community responses to climate warming and also successional changes. With increasing temperature, the importance of ruderal (R) and stress tolerance (S) components is hypothesized to decrease, while the strength of the competitive (C) component should increase. Offshoots and younger plants are predicted to have greater R and smaller S components. Leaf area, leaf dry matter content, and specific leaf area were measured for 1,344 forest plants belonging to 134 species in Liangshui and Fenglin Nature Reserves in Northeastern China, and C, R, and S scores calculated for each. Linear mixed effect models were used to assess how these indicators differed among study sites ( n = 2), regeneration types, ontogenetic stages, and plant life forms. The two study sites have an average annual temperature difference of 0.675°C, simulating a temperature increase of 0.630°C due to climate warming. Higher temperatures reduce low‐temperature stress and frost damage, which may explain the observed decrease in R and S scores; at the same time, plant competitive ability increased, as manifested by higher C scores. This effect was most pronounced for herbaceous plants, but nearly negligible as compared to the effect of regeneration type for trees and of ontogeny for woody species. Resprouting trees and younger woody plants had higher R scores and lower S scores, a sign of adaptation to high disturbance. In this study, a small increase in mean annual temperature led to shifts in CSR strategy components for herbaceous species, without altering the vegetation type or community composition. Offshoots and younger plants had higher R and lower S scores, shedding light on similar changes in the ecological strategies of tree communities during secondary succession, such as the transition of Quercus mongolica coppices to forest and age‐related changes in Populus davidiana – Betula platyphylla forests.

Trait ecology of startup plants

“…In other comparisons within natural vegetation (e.g. Thomas & Bazzaz, 1999; Hölscher, 2004; Martínez‐Garza & Howe, 2005; Ishida et al ., 2005; Kenzo et al ., 2006, 2015; studies gathered in Poorter et al ., 2009; Kitajima & Poorter, 2010; Liu et al ., 2010; Spasojevic et al ., 2014; Zhang & Wang, 2021; Martin & Isaac, 2021), seedling and sapling leaves have developed in shade compared to top‐of‐canopy leaves. These comparisons will have light‐response plasticity laid on top of effects of plant size, since LMA is known to decrease up to about three‐fold from high to low light intensities (Poorter et al ., 2009).…”

“…2022 The Authors New Phytologist Ó 2022 New Phytologist Foundation New Phytologist (2022) 235: 842-847 www.newphytologist.comattributed to properties of the species or the situation, and some to experimental noise.In other comparisons within natural vegetation (e.g Thomas & Bazzaz, 1999;Hölscher, 2004;Martı ´nez-Garza & Howe, 2005;Ishida et al, 2005;Kenzo et al, 2006Kenzo et al, , 2015. studies gathered in Poorter et al, 2009;Kitajima & Poorter, 2010;Liu et al, 2010;Spasojevic et al, 2014;Zhang & Wang, 2021;Martin & Isaac, 2021), seedling and sapling leaves have developed in shade Assumed constant in trait-growth theory; however, this is in the nature of a null assumption rather than a strong prediction. If true, mass-basis photosynthetic capacity and leaf nitrogen are expected to decrease with height.…”

Intraspecific transitioning of ecological strategies in Pinus massoniana trees across restoration stages

“…We used individual size (basal diameter, BD) to represent different ontogenetic stages of P. massoniana (Dayrell et al., 2018 ; Zhang & Wang, 2021 ). The BD ranges were similar across the three plots: 11.15–159.74, 12.41–159.51, and 10.26–165.24 mm.…”

“…For example, the dominant species in a resource‐limited system shifts from those with a high stress‐tolerant strategy to those with C and R strategies as the availability of water and soil nutrients increases (Butterfield & Briggs, 2011 ; Rosado et al., 2017 ). Similarly, warmer temperatures lead to reduced R and S components while augmenting plant competitiveness (Rosenfield et al., 2019 ; Zhang & Wang, 2021 ). Both May et al.…”

Different responses of growth and physiology to warming and reduced precipitation of two co-existing seedlings in a temperate secondary forest

“…In Harvard forests, a 5 °C increase in soil temperature provided more available nitrogen for plants (Melillo et al, 2002). In addition, the biogeochemical hypothesis indicates that the increase of foliar N concentrate under elevated temperature is correlated to strengthened plant photosynthesis and increased plant nitrogen absorption capacity of (Zhang and Wang, 2021). The above two pathways could explain higher foliar nitrogen in a warming scenario.…”