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Context-Dependency in Relationships Between Herbaceous Plant Leaf Traits and Abiotic Factors

Leaf traits are important indicators of plants’ adaptive strategy to environmental changes. It is an established fact that leaf traits are jointly regulated by climatic and edaphic factors besides genetic factors. However, the relative importance of these abiotic forces in determining the general pa...

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Autores principales: Zhang, Zhenchao, Sun, Jian, Liu, Miao, Shang, Hua, Wang, Jinniu, Wang, Jinsong, Zhou, Huakun, Li, Yong, Wang, Yi, Chen, Wanjie
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8990845/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35401631
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2022.757077
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author Zhang, Zhenchao
Sun, Jian
Liu, Miao
Shang, Hua
Wang, Jinniu
Wang, Jinsong
Zhou, Huakun
Li, Yong
Wang, Yi
Chen, Wanjie
author_facet Zhang, Zhenchao
Sun, Jian
Liu, Miao
Shang, Hua
Wang, Jinniu
Wang, Jinsong
Zhou, Huakun
Li, Yong
Wang, Yi
Chen, Wanjie
author_sort Zhang, Zhenchao
collection PubMed
description Leaf traits are important indicators of plants’ adaptive strategy to environmental changes. It is an established fact that leaf traits are jointly regulated by climatic and edaphic factors besides genetic factors. However, the relative importance of these abiotic forces in determining the general patterns of herbaceous plant leaf traits across different climatic regions in China is far from clear. We collected 1,653 observations of 542 species of herbaceous plant leaf traits including leaf mass per area, leaf nitrogen, and leaf phosphorus from 316 sampling sites across four climatic regions. We found that the leaf mass per area in the arid region was apparently larger than the others, whereas the smallest mass-based leaf nitrogen and mass-based leaf phosphorus were found in the humid region. Increased growing season temperature and evapotranspiration consistently promoted a conservative growth strategy indicated by higher relative benefit of leaf mass per area, especially in the arid region. Solar radiation in growing season promoted an acquisitive growth strategy indicated by higher relative benefits of mass-based leaf nitrogen and phosphorus in the humid region, but opposite patterns were found in the arid region and semi-humid region. Of all the soil nutrients including soil organic matter, total nitrogen, total phosphorus, and available nitrogen, soil available nitrogen was the strongest predictor of relative benefits of leaf traits associated with a nutrient acquisitive strategy, except in the nutrient-rich semi-humid region. There was a relatively larger number of abiotic factors contributing to relative benefits of leaf traits in the arid and humid regions. We concluded that plant functionality could respond divergently to the same factor facing different habitat conditions. Moreover, the relative benefits of leaf traits tended to be more vulnerable to abiotic filtering in more stressful conditions. Our findings have important implications for understanding the context-dependency of plant functionality to environmental filtering and further improving the predictability of plant dynamics under global change.
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spelling pubmed-89908452022-04-09 Context-Dependency in Relationships Between Herbaceous Plant Leaf Traits and Abiotic Factors Zhang, Zhenchao Sun, Jian Liu, Miao Shang, Hua Wang, Jinniu Wang, Jinsong Zhou, Huakun Li, Yong Wang, Yi Chen, Wanjie Front Plant Sci Plant Science Leaf traits are important indicators of plants’ adaptive strategy to environmental changes. It is an established fact that leaf traits are jointly regulated by climatic and edaphic factors besides genetic factors. However, the relative importance of these abiotic forces in determining the general patterns of herbaceous plant leaf traits across different climatic regions in China is far from clear. We collected 1,653 observations of 542 species of herbaceous plant leaf traits including leaf mass per area, leaf nitrogen, and leaf phosphorus from 316 sampling sites across four climatic regions. We found that the leaf mass per area in the arid region was apparently larger than the others, whereas the smallest mass-based leaf nitrogen and mass-based leaf phosphorus were found in the humid region. Increased growing season temperature and evapotranspiration consistently promoted a conservative growth strategy indicated by higher relative benefit of leaf mass per area, especially in the arid region. Solar radiation in growing season promoted an acquisitive growth strategy indicated by higher relative benefits of mass-based leaf nitrogen and phosphorus in the humid region, but opposite patterns were found in the arid region and semi-humid region. Of all the soil nutrients including soil organic matter, total nitrogen, total phosphorus, and available nitrogen, soil available nitrogen was the strongest predictor of relative benefits of leaf traits associated with a nutrient acquisitive strategy, except in the nutrient-rich semi-humid region. There was a relatively larger number of abiotic factors contributing to relative benefits of leaf traits in the arid and humid regions. We concluded that plant functionality could respond divergently to the same factor facing different habitat conditions. Moreover, the relative benefits of leaf traits tended to be more vulnerable to abiotic filtering in more stressful conditions. Our findings have important implications for understanding the context-dependency of plant functionality to environmental filtering and further improving the predictability of plant dynamics under global change. Frontiers Media S.A. 2022-03-25 /pmc/articles/PMC8990845/ /pubmed/35401631 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2022.757077 Text en Copyright © 2022 Zhang, Sun, Liu, Shang, Wang, Wang, Zhou, Li, Wang and Chen. 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
Zhang, Zhenchao
Sun, Jian
Liu, Miao
Shang, Hua
Wang, Jinniu
Wang, Jinsong
Zhou, Huakun
Li, Yong
Wang, Yi
Chen, Wanjie
Context-Dependency in Relationships Between Herbaceous Plant Leaf Traits and Abiotic Factors
title Context-Dependency in Relationships Between Herbaceous Plant Leaf Traits and Abiotic Factors
title_full Context-Dependency in Relationships Between Herbaceous Plant Leaf Traits and Abiotic Factors
title_fullStr Context-Dependency in Relationships Between Herbaceous Plant Leaf Traits and Abiotic Factors
title_full_unstemmed Context-Dependency in Relationships Between Herbaceous Plant Leaf Traits and Abiotic Factors
title_short Context-Dependency in Relationships Between Herbaceous Plant Leaf Traits and Abiotic Factors
title_sort context-dependency in relationships between herbaceous plant leaf traits and abiotic factors
topic Plant Science
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8990845/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35401631
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2022.757077
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