Cargando…

Plant Phylogeny and Growth Form as Drivers of the Altitudinal Variation in Woody Leaf Vein Traits

Variation in leaf veins along environmental gradients reflects an important adaptive strategy of plants to the external habitats, because of their crucial roles in maintaining leaf water status and photosynthetic capacity. However, most studies concentrate on a few species and their vein variation a...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Wang, Ruili, Chen, Haoxuan, Liu, Xinrui, Wang, Zhibo, Wen, Jingwen, Zhang, Shuoxin
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7012802/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32117333
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2019.01735
_version_ 1783496277284093952
author Wang, Ruili
Chen, Haoxuan
Liu, Xinrui
Wang, Zhibo
Wen, Jingwen
Zhang, Shuoxin
author_facet Wang, Ruili
Chen, Haoxuan
Liu, Xinrui
Wang, Zhibo
Wen, Jingwen
Zhang, Shuoxin
author_sort Wang, Ruili
collection PubMed
description Variation in leaf veins along environmental gradients reflects an important adaptive strategy of plants to the external habitats, because of their crucial roles in maintaining leaf water status and photosynthetic capacity. However, most studies concentrate on a few species and their vein variation across horizontal spatial scale, we know little about how vein traits shift along the vertical scale, e.g., elevational gradient along a mountain, and how such patterns are shaped by plant types and environmental factors. Here, we aimed to investigate the variation in leaf vein traits (i.e., vein density, VD; vein thickness, VT; and vein volume per unit leaf area, VV) of 93 woody species distributed along an elevational gradient (1,374–3,375 m) in a temperate mountain in China. Our results showed that altitude-related trends differed between growth forms. Tree plants from higher altitudes had lower VD but higher VT and VV than those from lower altitude; however, the opposite tend was observed in VD of shrubs, and no significant altitudinal changes in their VT or VV. Plant phylogenetic information at the clade level rather than climate explained most of variation in three leaf vein traits (17.1–86.6% vs. <0.011–6.3% explained variance), supporting the phylogenetic conservatism hypothesis for leaf vein traits. Moreover, the phylogenetic effects on vein traits differed between trees and shrubs, with the vein traits of trees being relatively more conserved. Together, our study provides new picture of leaf vein variation along the altitude, and highlights the importance of taking plant phylogeny into consideration when discussing trait variation from an ecological to a biogeographic scale.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-7012802
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2020
publisher Frontiers Media S.A.
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-70128022020-02-28 Plant Phylogeny and Growth Form as Drivers of the Altitudinal Variation in Woody Leaf Vein Traits Wang, Ruili Chen, Haoxuan Liu, Xinrui Wang, Zhibo Wen, Jingwen Zhang, Shuoxin Front Plant Sci Plant Science Variation in leaf veins along environmental gradients reflects an important adaptive strategy of plants to the external habitats, because of their crucial roles in maintaining leaf water status and photosynthetic capacity. However, most studies concentrate on a few species and their vein variation across horizontal spatial scale, we know little about how vein traits shift along the vertical scale, e.g., elevational gradient along a mountain, and how such patterns are shaped by plant types and environmental factors. Here, we aimed to investigate the variation in leaf vein traits (i.e., vein density, VD; vein thickness, VT; and vein volume per unit leaf area, VV) of 93 woody species distributed along an elevational gradient (1,374–3,375 m) in a temperate mountain in China. Our results showed that altitude-related trends differed between growth forms. Tree plants from higher altitudes had lower VD but higher VT and VV than those from lower altitude; however, the opposite tend was observed in VD of shrubs, and no significant altitudinal changes in their VT or VV. Plant phylogenetic information at the clade level rather than climate explained most of variation in three leaf vein traits (17.1–86.6% vs. <0.011–6.3% explained variance), supporting the phylogenetic conservatism hypothesis for leaf vein traits. Moreover, the phylogenetic effects on vein traits differed between trees and shrubs, with the vein traits of trees being relatively more conserved. Together, our study provides new picture of leaf vein variation along the altitude, and highlights the importance of taking plant phylogeny into consideration when discussing trait variation from an ecological to a biogeographic scale. Frontiers Media S.A. 2020-02-05 /pmc/articles/PMC7012802/ /pubmed/32117333 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2019.01735 Text en Copyright © 2020 Wang, Chen, Liu, Wang, Wen and Zhang http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Plant Science
Wang, Ruili
Chen, Haoxuan
Liu, Xinrui
Wang, Zhibo
Wen, Jingwen
Zhang, Shuoxin
Plant Phylogeny and Growth Form as Drivers of the Altitudinal Variation in Woody Leaf Vein Traits
title Plant Phylogeny and Growth Form as Drivers of the Altitudinal Variation in Woody Leaf Vein Traits
title_full Plant Phylogeny and Growth Form as Drivers of the Altitudinal Variation in Woody Leaf Vein Traits
title_fullStr Plant Phylogeny and Growth Form as Drivers of the Altitudinal Variation in Woody Leaf Vein Traits
title_full_unstemmed Plant Phylogeny and Growth Form as Drivers of the Altitudinal Variation in Woody Leaf Vein Traits
title_short Plant Phylogeny and Growth Form as Drivers of the Altitudinal Variation in Woody Leaf Vein Traits
title_sort plant phylogeny and growth form as drivers of the altitudinal variation in woody leaf vein traits
topic Plant Science
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7012802/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32117333
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2019.01735
work_keys_str_mv AT wangruili plantphylogenyandgrowthformasdriversofthealtitudinalvariationinwoodyleafveintraits
AT chenhaoxuan plantphylogenyandgrowthformasdriversofthealtitudinalvariationinwoodyleafveintraits
AT liuxinrui plantphylogenyandgrowthformasdriversofthealtitudinalvariationinwoodyleafveintraits
AT wangzhibo plantphylogenyandgrowthformasdriversofthealtitudinalvariationinwoodyleafveintraits
AT wenjingwen plantphylogenyandgrowthformasdriversofthealtitudinalvariationinwoodyleafveintraits
AT zhangshuoxin plantphylogenyandgrowthformasdriversofthealtitudinalvariationinwoodyleafveintraits