Above- and below-ground trait coordination in tree seedlings depend on the most limiting resource: a test comparing a wet and a dry tropical forest in Mexico

PeerJ

article

Lucía Sanaphre-Villanueva¹  Fernando Pineda-García³  Wesley Dáttilo⁴  Luisa Fernanda Pinzón-Pérez²  Arlett Ricaño-Rocha²  Horacio Paz² 

[1] Centro del Cambio Global y la Sustentabilidad A.C.;Instituto de Investigaciones en Ecosistemas y Sustentabilidad, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México;Escuela Nacional de Estudios Superiores, Unidad Morelia, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México;Red de Ecoetología, Instituto de Ecología;Laboratorio Nacional de Innovación Ecotecnológica para la Sustentabilidad, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México;Center for Stable Isotope Biogeochemistry and the Department of Integrative Biology, University of California

关键词: Plant functional traits;    Functional coordination;    Tropical forests;    Moist and dry forests;    Tree seedlings;   

DOI  :  10.7717/peerj.13458

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: Inra

【 摘 要 】

The study of above- and below-ground organ plant coordination is crucial for understanding the biophysical constraints and trade-offs involved in species’ performance under different environmental conditions. Environmental stress is expected to increase constraints on species trait combinations, resulting in stronger coordination among the organs involved in the acquisition and processing of the most limiting resource. To test this hypothesis, we compared the coordination of trait combinations in 94 tree seedling species from two tropical forest systems in Mexico: dry and moist. In general, we expected that the water limitation experienced by dry forest species would result in stronger leaf-stem-root coordination than light limitation experienced by moist forest species. Using multiple correlations analyses and tools derived from network theory, we found similar functional trait coordination between forests. However, the most important traits differed between the forest types. While in the dry forest the most central traits were all related to water storage (leaf and stem water content and root thickness), in the moist forest they were related to the capacity to store water in leaves (leaf water content), root efficiency to capture resources (specific root length), and stem toughness (wood density). Our findings indicate that there is a shift in the relative importance of mechanisms to face the most limiting resource in contrasting tropical forests.

【 授权许可】

CC BY