Latitudinal variation of leaf morphological traits from species to communities along a forest transect in eastern China

doi:10.1007/s11442-016-1251-x

Abstract

Abstract:

Comprehensive information on geographic patterns of leaf morphological traits in Chinese forests is still scarce. To explore the spatial patterns of leaf traits, we investigated leaf area (LA), leaf thickness (LT), specific leaf area (SLA), and leaf dry matter content (LDMC) across 847 species from nine typical forests along the North-South Transect of Eastern China (NSTEC) between July and August 2013, and also calculated the community weighted means (CWM) of leaf traits by determining the relative dominance of each species. Our results showed that, for all species, the means (± SE) of LA, LT, SLA, and LDMC were 2860.01 ± 135.37 mm², 0.17 ± 0.003 mm, 20.15 ± 0.43 m² kg^-1, and 316.73 ± 3.81 mg g^-1, respectively. Furthermore, latitudinal variation in leaf traits differed at the species and community levels. Generally, at the species level, SLA increased and LDMC decreased as latitude increased, whereas no clear latitudinal trends among LA or LT were found, which could be the result of shifts in plant functional types. When scaling up to the community level, more significant spatial patterns of leaf traits were observed (R² = 0.46-0.71), driven by climate and soil N content. These results provided synthetic data compilation and analyses to better parameterize complex ecological models in the future, and emphasized the importance of scaling-up when studying the biogeographic patterns of plant traits.

Key words: latitudinal pattern, leaf morphological trait, community weighted mean, forest ecosystem, North- South Transect of Eastern China

Ruili WANG, Guirui *YU, Nianpeng *HE, Qiufeng WANG, Ning ZHAO, Zhiwei XU. Latitudinal variation of leaf morphological traits from species to communities along a forest transect in eastern China[J].Journal of Geographical Sciences, 2016, 26(1): 15-26.

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Site	Latitude (°N)	Longitude (°E)	MAT (°C)	MAP (mm)	SN (mg g^-1)	Vegetation type	No. of species
JF	18.7	108.9	19.8	2449.0	1.95	Tropical monsoon rainforest	139
DH	23.2	112.5	20.9	1927.0	1.76	Subtropical evergreen broad-leaved forest	158
JL	24.6	114.4	16.7	1954.0	2.35	Subtropical evergreen broad-leaved forest	172
SN	31.3	110.5	10.6	1330.0	3.76	Subtropical mixed evergreen and deciduous broad-leaved forest	120
TY	36.7	112.1	6.2	662.0	2.56	Temperate deciduous broad-leaved forest	76
DL	40.0	115.4	4.8	539.1	3.12	Temperate deciduous broad-leaved forest	79
CB	42.4	128.1	2.6	691.0	6.37	Temperate mixed forest	109
LS	47.2	128.9	-0.3	676.0	4.59	Temperate mixed forest	104
HZ	51.8	123.0	-4.4	481.6	3.15	Cold-temperate coniferous forest	88

Level	Traits	n	Mean	Minimum	Maximum	SE	CV	Skewness
Species	LA (mm²)	847	2860.01	4.09	56085.4	135.37	1.51	5.54
	LT (mm)	847	0.17	0.01	0.78	0.003	0.56	2.71
	SLA (m²·kg^-1)	847	20.15	1.89	94.99	0.43	0.68	1.29
	LDMC (mg·g^-1)	847	316.73	44.46	775.68	3.81	0.39	0.27
Community	LA_CWM (mm²)	32	1443.8	22.98	3547.5	169.35	0.66	0.49
	LT_CWM (mm)	32	0.34	0.18	0.69	0.03	0.46	1.00
	SLA_CWM (m²·kg^-1)	32	9.83	5.08	18.34	0.71	0.41	0.68
	LDMC_CWM (mg·g^-1)	32	421.78	364.16	544.01	8.76	0.12	0.72

Factor	Log LA			Log LT			Log SLA			Log LDMC
Factor	df	F	SS%	df	F	SS%	df	F	SS%	df	F	SS%
PFT	4	56.79^**	19.43	4	1.26^**	41.57	4	163.24^**	36.83	4	129.50^**	34.18
MAT	1	98.16^**	6.72							1	41.41^**	2.19
MAP				1	25.22^**	1.65	1	127.55^**	5.76
SN	1	30.49^**	2.09	1	139.73^**	9.13	1	197.69^**	8.92	1	77.47^**	4.09
PFT×MAT										4	9.90^**	2.09
PFT×MAP				4	4.45^**	1.16	4	6.73^**	1.21
PFT×SN				4	3.90^**	1.02	4	2.67^*	0.48	4	4.30^**	0.91
MAT×SN										1	10.18^**	0.54
MAP×SN				1	80.67^**	5.27	1	12.48^**	0.56
Site	8	6.31^**	3.46	8	5.14^**	2.68	8	3.86^**	1.39	8	4.51^**	1.90
Residuals	997		68.31	1001		65.51	992		44.85	1022		54.11

Factor	Log LA_CWM			Log LT_CWM			Log SLA_CWM			Log LDMC_CWM
Factor	df	F	SS%	df	F	SS%	df	F	SS%	df	F	SS%
MAT	1	3.34^*	25.08				1	7.77^*	16.51	1	22.56^**	48.04
MAP				1	5.30^**	32.75
SN							1	7.75^**	36.41
MAT×SN							1	0.003	1.79
Site	8	14.09^**	58.43	8	14.99^**	54.87	8	5.86^*	15.42	8	1.471	3.01
Residuals	22		16.49	22		12.38	20		29.87	22		48.95