Morphological and moisture availability controls of the leaf area‐to‐sapwood area ratio: analysis of measurements on Australian trees

Ecology and Evolution

Henrique Furstenau Togashi³  Iain Colin Prentice³  Bradley John Evans³  David Ian Forrester¹  Paul Drake⁵  Paul Feikema⁶  Kim Brooksbank⁴  Derek Eamus² 

[1] Department of Forest and Ecosystem Science, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia;School of Environment, University of Technology Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia;Department of Biological Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia;Agricultural Resource Risk Management, Department of Agriculture and Food, Albany, Western Australia, Australia;Natural Resources Branch, Department of Parks and Wild Life, Bentley, Western Australia, Australia;Chair of Silviculture, Faculty of Environment and Natural Resources, Freiburg University, Freiburg, Germany

关键词: Climatic moisture;    leaf area;    pipe model;    plant hydraulics;    sapwood area;    tree morphology;   

DOI  :  10.1002/ece3.1344

来源: Wiley

【 摘 要 】

Abstract

1. The leaf area-to-sapwood area ratio (LA:SA) is a key plant trait that links photosynthesis to transpiration. The pipe model theory states that the sapwood cross-sectional area of a stem or branch at any point should scale isometrically with the area of leaves distal to that point. Optimization theory further suggests that LA:SA should decrease toward drier climates. Although acclimation of LA:SA to climate has been reported within species, much less is known about the scaling of this trait with climate among species.
2. We compiled LA:SA measurements from 184 species of Australian evergreen angiosperm trees. The pipe model was broadly confirmed, based on measurements on branches and trunks of trees from one to 27 years old. Despite considerable scatter in LA:SA among species, quantile regression showed strong (0.2 < R1 < 0.65) positive relationships between two climatic moisture indices and the lowermost (5%) and uppermost (5–15%) quantiles of log LA:SA, suggesting that moisture availability constrains the envelope of minimum and maximum values of LA:SA typical for any given climate.
3. Interspecific differences in plant hydraulic conductivity are probably responsible for the large scatter of values in the mid-quantile range and may be an important determinant of tree morphology.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2015 The Authors. Ecology and Evolution published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.