Search Results (4)

Plant economics is based on carbon and nutrients rather than money. While leaf strategies aboveground are well characterized along an economic spectrum from “fast-growing and short-lived” to “slow and conservative,” economic models defined by aboveground shoot strategies remain unclear. Here, we offer a comprehensive view of aboveground economics and show that collaboration between shoots and stem cortical chlorenchyma can break out of the one-dimensional economic spectrum, offering a full range of economic possibilities. Trait data from 1551 current-year shoots of a single species confirm the classical fast–slow “conservation” gradient but reveal that most variation is explained by an orthogonal “cooperation” gradient, ranging from self-reliant resource acquisition to outsourced nutrient synthesis via the stem cortical chlorenchyma. This expanded “shoot economics space” provides a solid foundation for predicting aboveground responses to environmental change. Full article

In this study, to comprehensively investigate the impact of garden plants on air quality, we measured the leaves of 18 common garden plants in three different areas, namely, Suzhou industrial parks (clean air area (CAA)), Xiangcheng district parks (lightly polluted area (LPA)), and Huqiu district parks (highly polluted area (HPA)). We also measured the leaf functional traits of different life-types of plants. To explore the trade-off strategies of the leaf traits of common garden plants in response to air pollution and to assess the adaptive capacity of different life types of plants to air pollution. The results show that plants in the polluted area had higher leaf dry matter content (LDMC) and leaf nitrogen content per unit mass (N_mass), and a lower specific leaf area (SLA), maximum net photosynthetic rate per unit area (A_area), transpiration rate (Tr), stomatal conductance (Gs), and chlorophyll value (SPAD). Pearson correlation analysis showed that SLA was significantly positively correlated with N_mass, Tr, photosynthetic use efficiency (PNUE), and SPAD, and significantly negatively correlated with LDMC, while A_area was significantly positively correlated with chlorophyll value. Redundancy analysis revealed that the correlation between each leaf functional trait and atmospheric pollution factors was as follows: LDMC > N_mass > SLA > LA > A_area > Tr > PNUE > SPAD. The results suggest that different plant types have varying levels of adaptability to environmental conditions. Trees were found to be the most adaptable, followed by shrubs, herbs, and lianas. Additionally, under the stress of air pollution, herbs and lianas exhibited characteristics of “fast investment-return” on the leaf economic spectrum, meaning they were able to quickly allocate resources to maximize their return. However, trees and shrubs displayed traits of “slow investment-return”, indicating a more conservative approach to resource allocation. These results provide valuable insights into the leaf trade-off strategies of plants in Suzhou Park under air pollution stress and can guide the selection of suitable plant species in similar environments. Full article

Lianas are predicted to perform better than trees during seasonal drought among tropical forests, which has substantial implications for tree and forest dynamics. Here, we use whole-plant trait comparison to test whether lianas allocated on the resource acquisitive end of the continuum of woody plant strategies. We measured morphological and biomass allocation traits for seedlings of 153 species of trees and lianas occurring in a tropical forest in Thailand during the dry season. We first compared trait differences between lianas and trees directly, and then classified all species based on their trait similarities. We found that liana seedlings had significantly higher specific leaf areas and specific stem lengths than co-occurring tree seedlings. Trait similarity classification resulted in a liana-dominated cluster and a tree-dominated cluster. Compared to the tree-dominated cluster, species in the liana-dominated cluster were characterized by a consistent pattern of lower dry matter content and cheaper and more efficient per dry mass unit investment in both above- and below-ground organs. The consistency of all organs operating in tandem for dry matter content, together with optimized investment in them per mass unit, implied that the lianas and trees can be highly overlapped on the strategy gradient of the resource acquisition continuum. Full article

Invasive Alien Species (IAS) are a serious threat to biodiversity, severely affecting natural habitats and species assemblages. However, no consistent empirical evidence emerged on which functional traits or trait combination may foster community invasibility. Novel insights on the functional features promoting community invasibility may arise from the use of mechanistic traits, like those associated with drought resistance, which have been seldom included in trait-based studies. Here, we tested for the functional strategies of native and invasive assemblage (i.e., environmental filtering hypothesis vs. niche divergence), and we assessed how the functional space determined by native species could influence community invasibility at the edges of a resource availability gradient. Our results showed that invasive species pools need to have a certain degree of differentiation in order to persist in highly invaded communities, suggesting that functional niche divergence may foster community invasibility. In addition, resident native communities more susceptible to invasion are those which, on average, have higher resource acquisition capacity, and lower drought resistance coupled with an apparently reduced water-use efficiency. We advocate the use of a mechanistic perspective in future research to comprehensively understand invasion dynamics, providing also new insights on the factors underlying community invasibility in different ecosystems. Full article