Lucas D Gorné1,2, Sandra Díaz1,2, Vanessa Minden3,4, Yusuke Onoda5, Koen Kramer6, Christopher Muir7, Sean T Michaletz8, Sandra Lavorel9, Joanne Sharpe10, Steven Jansen11, Martijn Slot12, Eduardo Chacon13, Gerhard Boenisch14. 1. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, Facultad de Ciencias Exactas Físicas y Naturales, Córdoba, Argentina. 2. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas, CONICET, IMBiV, Córdoba, Argentina. 3. Institute of Biology and Environmental Sciences, Landscape Ecology Group, University of Oldenburg, Oldenburg, Germany. 4. Department of Biology, Ecology and Biodiversity, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium. 5. Division of Forest and Biomaterials Science, Graduate School of Agriculture, Kyoto University, Oiwake, Kitashirakawa, Kyoto, Japan. 6. Wageningen University & Research, Wageningen University, The Netherlands. 7. Department of Botany, University of Hawai'i, Honolulu, HI, USA. 8. Department of Botany and Biodiversity Research Centre, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. 9. Laboratoire d'Ecologie Alpine, CNRS, Grenoble, France. 10. Sharplex Services, Edgecomb, ME 04556, USA. 11. Institute of Systematic Botany and Ecology, Ulm University, Ulm, Germany. 12. Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Panama City, Republic of Panama. 13. School of Biology, Universidad de Costa Rica, San José, Costa Rica. 14. Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, Jena, Germany.
Abstract
BACKGROUND AND AIMS: The acquisitive-conservative axis of plant ecological strategies results in a pattern of leaf trait covariation that captures the balance between leaf construction costs and plant growth potential. Studies evaluating trait covariation within species are scarcer, and have mostly dealt with variation in response to environmental gradients. Little work has been published on intraspecific patterns of leaf trait covariation in the absence of strong environmental variation. METHODS: We analysed covariation of four leaf functional traits [specific leaf area (SLA) leaf dry matter content (LDMC), force to tear (Ft) and leaf nitrogen content (Nm)] in six Poaceae and four Fabaceae species common in the dry Chaco forest of Central Argentina, growing in the field and in a common garden. We compared intraspecific covariation patterns (slopes, correlation and effect size) of leaf functional traits with global interspecific covariation patterns. Additionally, we checked for possible climatic and edaphic factors that could affect the intraspecific covariation pattern. KEY RESULTS: We found negative correlations for the LDMC-SLA, Ft-SLA, LDMC-Nm and Ft-Nm trait pairs. This intraspecific covariation pattern found both in the field and in the common garden and not explained by climatic or edaphic variation in the field follows the expected acquisitive-conservative axis. At the same time, we found quantitative differences in slopes among different species, and between these intraspecific patterns and the interspecific ones. Many of these differences seem to be idiosyncratic, but some appear consistent among species (e.g. all the intraspecific LDMC-SLA and LDMC-Nm slopes tend to be shallower than the global pattern). CONCLUSIONS: Our study indicates that the acquisitive-conservative leaf functional trait covariation pattern occurs at the intraspecific level even in the absence of relevant environmental variation in the field. This suggests a high degree of variation-covariation in leaf functional traits not driven by environmental variables.
BACKGROUND AND AIMS: The acquisitive-conservative axis of plant ecological strategies results in a pattern of leaf trait covariation that captures the balance between leaf construction costs and plant growth potential. Studies evaluating trait covariation within species are scarcer, and have mostly dealt with variation in response to environmental gradients. Little work has been published on intraspecific patterns of leaf trait covariation in the absence of strong environmental variation. METHODS: We analysed covariation of four leaf functional traits [specific leaf area (SLA) leaf dry matter content (LDMC), force to tear (Ft) and leaf nitrogen content (Nm)] in six Poaceae and four Fabaceae species common in the dry Chaco forest of Central Argentina, growing in the field and in a common garden. We compared intraspecific covariation patterns (slopes, correlation and effect size) of leaf functional traits with global interspecific covariation patterns. Additionally, we checked for possible climatic and edaphic factors that could affect the intraspecific covariation pattern. KEY RESULTS: We found negative correlations for the LDMC-SLA, Ft-SLA, LDMC-Nm and Ft-Nm trait pairs. This intraspecific covariation pattern found both in the field and in the common garden and not explained by climatic or edaphic variation in the field follows the expected acquisitive-conservative axis. At the same time, we found quantitative differences in slopes among different species, and between these intraspecific patterns and the interspecific ones. Many of these differences seem to be idiosyncratic, but some appear consistent among species (e.g. all the intraspecific LDMC-SLA and LDMC-Nm slopes tend to be shallower than the global pattern). CONCLUSIONS: Our study indicates that the acquisitive-conservative leaf functional trait covariation pattern occurs at the intraspecific level even in the absence of relevant environmental variation in the field. This suggests a high degree of variation-covariation in leaf functional traits not driven by environmental variables.
Authors: Ronghua Li; Shidan Zhu; Han Y H Chen; Robert John; Guoyi Zhou; Deqiang Zhang; Qianmei Zhang; Qing Ye Journal: Ecol Lett Date: 2015-08-27 Impact factor: 9.492
Authors: Andrew Siefert; Cyrille Violle; Loïc Chalmandrier; Cécile H Albert; Adrien Taudiere; Alex Fajardo; Lonnie W Aarssen; Christopher Baraloto; Marcos B Carlucci; Marcus V Cianciaruso; Vinícius de L Dantas; Francesco de Bello; Leandro D S Duarte; Carlos R Fonseca; Grégoire T Freschet; Stéphanie Gaucherand; Nicolas Gross; Kouki Hikosaka; Benjamin Jackson; Vincent Jung; Chiho Kamiyama; Masatoshi Katabuchi; Steven W Kembel; Emilie Kichenin; Nathan J B Kraft; Anna Lagerström; Yoann Le Bagousse-Pinguet; Yuanzhi Li; Norman Mason; Julie Messier; Tohru Nakashizuka; Jacob McC Overton; Duane A Peltzer; I M Pérez-Ramos; Valério D Pillar; Honor C Prentice; Sarah Richardson; Takehiro Sasaki; Brandon S Schamp; Christian Schöb; Bill Shipley; Maja Sundqvist; Martin T Sykes; Marie Vandewalle; David A Wardle Journal: Ecol Lett Date: 2015-09-28 Impact factor: 9.492