Overwintering evergreen oaks reverse typical relationships between leaf traits in a species spectrum.

ABSTRACT: The leaf economics spectrum has given us a fundamental understanding of the species variations in leaf variables. Across plant species, tight correlations among leaf mass per area (LMA), mass-based nitrogen (N m) and photosynthetic rate (A m) and leaf lifespan have been well known as trade-offs in leaf carbon economy. However, the regional or biome-level correlations may not be necessary to correspond with the global-scale analysis. Here, we show that almost all leaf variables in overwintering evergreen oaks in Japan were relatively well included within the evergreen-broadleaved trees in worldwide temperate forests, but N m was more consistent with that in deciduous broadleaved trees. Contrary to the universal correlations, the correlation between A m and N m among the evergreen oaks was n

SUBMITTER: Harayama H 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4968473 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature