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Plant function and evolutionary biology
RESEARCH ARTICLE

Separating species and environmental determinants of leaf functional traits in temperate rainforest plants along a soil-development chronosequence

Matthew H. Turnbull A H , Kevin L. Griffin B , Nikolaos M. Fyllas C , Jon Lloyd D E , Patrick Meir F G and Owen K. Atkin F
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations

A Centre for Integrative Ecology, School of Biological Sciences, University of Canterbury, Private Bag 4800, Christchurch, New Zealand.

B Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University, Palisades, NY 10964-8000, USA.

C Department of Ecology and Systematics, Faculty of Biology, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens 15784, Greece.

D Department of Life Sciences, Imperial College London, Silwood Park Campus, Buckhurst Road, Ascot, Berkshire SL5 7PY, UK.

E School of Marine and Tropical Biology, James Cook University, Cairns, Qld 4870, Australia.

F Research School of Biology, The Australian National University, Canberra, ACT 2601, Australia.

G School of Geosciences, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH8 9XP, UK.

H Corresponding author. Email: matthew.turnbull@canterbury.ac.nz

Functional Plant Biology 43(8) 751-765 https://doi.org/10.1071/FP16035
Submitted: 25 January 2016  Accepted: 11 April 2016   Published: 17 May 2016

Abstract

We measured a diverse range of foliar characteristics in shrub and tree species in temperate rainforest communities along a soil chronosequence (six sites from 8 to 120 000 years) and used multilevel model analysis to attribute the proportion of variance for each trait into genetic (G, here meaning species-level), environmental (E) and residual error components. We hypothesised that differences in leaf traits would be driven primarily by changes in soil nutrient availability during ecosystem progression and retrogression. Several leaf structural, chemical and gas-exchange traits were more strongly driven by G than E effects. For leaf mass per unit area (MA), foliar [N], net CO2 assimilation and dark respiration rates and foliar carbohydrate concentration, the G component accounted for 60–87% of the total variance, with the variability associated with plot, the E effect, much less important. Other traits, such as foliar [P] and N : P, displayed strong E and residual effects. Analyses revealed significant reductions in the slopes of G-only bivariate relationships when compared with raw relationships, indicating that a large proportion of trait–trait relationships is species based, and not a response to environment per se. This should be accounted for when assessing the mechanistic basis for using such relationships in order to make predictions of responses of plants to short-term environmental change.

Additional keywords: carbohydrates, dark respiration, genotypic, nitrogen, phenotypic, phosphorus, photosynthesis, soil nutrient availability, temperate rainforest.


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