The hydraulic efficiency-safety trade-off differs between lianas and trees.

ABSTRACT: Hydraulic traits are important for woody plant functioning and distribution. Associations among hydraulic traits, other leaf and stem traits, and species' performance are relatively well understood for trees, but remain poorly studied for lianas. We evaluated the coordination among hydraulic efficiency (i.e., maximum hydraulic conductivity), hydraulic safety (i.e., cavitation resistance), a suite of eight morphological and physiological traits, and species' abundances for saplings of 24 liana species and 27 tree species in wet tropical forests in Panama. Trees showed a strong trade-off between hydraulic efficiency and hydraulic safety, whereas efficiency and safety were decoupled in lianas. Hydraulic efficiency was strongly and similarly correlated with acquisitive traits for lianas and tr

SUBMITTER: van der Sande MT 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6850011 | biostudies-literature | 2019 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature