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Relationships Between Leaf Carbon and Macronutrients Across Woody Species and Forest Ecosystems Highlight How Carbon Is Allocated to Leaf Structural Function

Stoichiometry of leaf macronutrients can provide insight into the tradeoffs between leaf structural and metabolic investments. Structural carbon (C) in cell walls is contained in lignin and polysaccharides (cellulose, hemicellulose, and pectins). Much of leaf calcium (Ca) and a fraction of magnesium...

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Autores principales: Xing, Kaixiong, Zhao, Mingfei, Niinemets, Ülo, Niu, Shuli, Tian, Jing, Jiang, Yuan, Chen, Han Y. H., White, Philip J., Guo, Dali, Ma, Zeqing
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8226226/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34177992
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2021.674932
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author Xing, Kaixiong
Zhao, Mingfei
Niinemets, Ülo
Niu, Shuli
Tian, Jing
Jiang, Yuan
Chen, Han Y. H.
White, Philip J.
Guo, Dali
Ma, Zeqing
author_facet Xing, Kaixiong
Zhao, Mingfei
Niinemets, Ülo
Niu, Shuli
Tian, Jing
Jiang, Yuan
Chen, Han Y. H.
White, Philip J.
Guo, Dali
Ma, Zeqing
author_sort Xing, Kaixiong
collection PubMed
description Stoichiometry of leaf macronutrients can provide insight into the tradeoffs between leaf structural and metabolic investments. Structural carbon (C) in cell walls is contained in lignin and polysaccharides (cellulose, hemicellulose, and pectins). Much of leaf calcium (Ca) and a fraction of magnesium (Mg) were further bounded with cell wall pectins. The macronutrients phosphorus (P), potassium (K), and nitrogen (N) are primarily involved in cell metabolic functions. There is limited information on the functional interrelations among leaf C and macronutrients, and the functional dimensions characterizing the leaf structural and metabolic tradeoffs are not widely appreciated. We investigated the relationships between leaf C and macronutrient (N, P, K, Ca, Mg) concentrations in two widespread broad-leaved deciduous woody species Quercus wutaishanica (90 individuals) and Betula platyphylla (47 individuals), and further tested the generality of the observed relationships in 222 woody eudicots from 15 forest ecosystems. In a subsample of 20 broad-leaved species, we also analyzed the relationships among C, Ca, lignin, and pectin concentrations in leaf cell walls. We found a significant leaf C–Ca tradeoff operating within and across species and across ecosystems. This basic relationship was explained by variations in the share of cell wall lignin and pectin investments at the cell scale. The C–Ca tradeoffs were mainly driven by soil pH and mean annual temperature and precipitation, suggesting that leaves were more economically built with less C and more Ca as soil pH increased and at lower temperature and lower precipitation. However, we did not detect consistent patterns among C–N, and C–Mg at different levels of biological organization, suggesting substantial plasticity in N and Mg distribution among cell organelles and cell protoplast and cell wall. We observed two major axes of macronutrient differentiation: the cell-wall structural axis consisting of protein-free C and Ca and the protoplasm metabolic axis consisting of P and K, underscoring the decoupling of structural and metabolic elements inherently linked with cell wall from protoplasm investment strategies. We conclude that the tradeoffs between leaf C and Ca highlight how carbon is allocated to leaf structural function and suggest that this might indicate biogeochemical niche differentiation of species.
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spelling pubmed-82262262021-06-26 Relationships Between Leaf Carbon and Macronutrients Across Woody Species and Forest Ecosystems Highlight How Carbon Is Allocated to Leaf Structural Function Xing, Kaixiong Zhao, Mingfei Niinemets, Ülo Niu, Shuli Tian, Jing Jiang, Yuan Chen, Han Y. H. White, Philip J. Guo, Dali Ma, Zeqing Front Plant Sci Plant Science Stoichiometry of leaf macronutrients can provide insight into the tradeoffs between leaf structural and metabolic investments. Structural carbon (C) in cell walls is contained in lignin and polysaccharides (cellulose, hemicellulose, and pectins). Much of leaf calcium (Ca) and a fraction of magnesium (Mg) were further bounded with cell wall pectins. The macronutrients phosphorus (P), potassium (K), and nitrogen (N) are primarily involved in cell metabolic functions. There is limited information on the functional interrelations among leaf C and macronutrients, and the functional dimensions characterizing the leaf structural and metabolic tradeoffs are not widely appreciated. We investigated the relationships between leaf C and macronutrient (N, P, K, Ca, Mg) concentrations in two widespread broad-leaved deciduous woody species Quercus wutaishanica (90 individuals) and Betula platyphylla (47 individuals), and further tested the generality of the observed relationships in 222 woody eudicots from 15 forest ecosystems. In a subsample of 20 broad-leaved species, we also analyzed the relationships among C, Ca, lignin, and pectin concentrations in leaf cell walls. We found a significant leaf C–Ca tradeoff operating within and across species and across ecosystems. This basic relationship was explained by variations in the share of cell wall lignin and pectin investments at the cell scale. The C–Ca tradeoffs were mainly driven by soil pH and mean annual temperature and precipitation, suggesting that leaves were more economically built with less C and more Ca as soil pH increased and at lower temperature and lower precipitation. However, we did not detect consistent patterns among C–N, and C–Mg at different levels of biological organization, suggesting substantial plasticity in N and Mg distribution among cell organelles and cell protoplast and cell wall. We observed two major axes of macronutrient differentiation: the cell-wall structural axis consisting of protein-free C and Ca and the protoplasm metabolic axis consisting of P and K, underscoring the decoupling of structural and metabolic elements inherently linked with cell wall from protoplasm investment strategies. We conclude that the tradeoffs between leaf C and Ca highlight how carbon is allocated to leaf structural function and suggest that this might indicate biogeochemical niche differentiation of species. Frontiers Media S.A. 2021-06-11 /pmc/articles/PMC8226226/ /pubmed/34177992 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2021.674932 Text en Copyright © 2021 Xing, Zhao, Niinemets, Niu, Tian, Jiang, Chen, White, Guo and Ma. https://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
Xing, Kaixiong
Zhao, Mingfei
Niinemets, Ülo
Niu, Shuli
Tian, Jing
Jiang, Yuan
Chen, Han Y. H.
White, Philip J.
Guo, Dali
Ma, Zeqing
Relationships Between Leaf Carbon and Macronutrients Across Woody Species and Forest Ecosystems Highlight How Carbon Is Allocated to Leaf Structural Function
title Relationships Between Leaf Carbon and Macronutrients Across Woody Species and Forest Ecosystems Highlight How Carbon Is Allocated to Leaf Structural Function
title_full Relationships Between Leaf Carbon and Macronutrients Across Woody Species and Forest Ecosystems Highlight How Carbon Is Allocated to Leaf Structural Function
title_fullStr Relationships Between Leaf Carbon and Macronutrients Across Woody Species and Forest Ecosystems Highlight How Carbon Is Allocated to Leaf Structural Function
title_full_unstemmed Relationships Between Leaf Carbon and Macronutrients Across Woody Species and Forest Ecosystems Highlight How Carbon Is Allocated to Leaf Structural Function
title_short Relationships Between Leaf Carbon and Macronutrients Across Woody Species and Forest Ecosystems Highlight How Carbon Is Allocated to Leaf Structural Function
title_sort relationships between leaf carbon and macronutrients across woody species and forest ecosystems highlight how carbon is allocated to leaf structural function
topic Plant Science
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8226226/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34177992
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2021.674932
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