New insight into the relationship between leaf stomatal traits and ecosystem function

JF, Jianfengling; DH, Dinghu; JL, Jiulian; SN, Shennongjia; TY, Taiyue; DL, Dongling; CB, Changbai; LS, Liangshui; HZ, Huzhong. The north-south transect of eastern China (NSTEC) is highlighted with different colors representing different vegetation types³². The map is generated using ArcGIS 10.0 software.

Latitudinal variation of leaf stomatal traits from species to community level in forests: linkage with ecosystem productivity

Wang R., Yu G., He N., Wang Q., Zhao N., Xu Z., Ge J. (2015)

• Ruili Wang, Guirui Yu, Nianpeng He, Qiufeng Wang, Ning Zhao, Zhiwei Xu
• , Jianping Ge

In Scientific Reports 5, Article number: 14454 –

https://www.nature.com/articles/srep14454

Abstract

To explore the latitudinal variation of stomatal traits from species to community level and their linkage with net primary productivity (NPP), we investigated leaf stomatal density (SD_L) and stomatal length (SL_L) across 760 species from nine forest ecosystems in eastern China, and calculated the community-level SD (SD_C) and SL (SL_C) through species-specific leaf area index (LAI).

Our results showed that latitudinal variation in species-level SD_L and SL_L was minimal, but community-level SD_C and SL_C decreased clearly with increasing latitude. The relationship between SD and SL was negative across species and different plant functional types (PFTs), but positive at the community level. Furthermore, community-level SD_Ccorrelated positively with forest NPP, and explained 51% of the variation in NPP.

These findings indicate that the trade-off by regulating SD_L and SL_L may be an important strategy for plant individuals to adapt to environmental changes, and temperature acts as the main factor influencing community-level stomatal traits through alteration of species composition.

Importantly, our findings provide new insight into the relationship between plant traits and ecosystem function.