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Leaf size of woody dicots predicts ecosystem primary productivity.

  • Li Y Institute of Ecology and Key Laboratory for Earth Surface Processes of the Ministry of Education, College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, China.
  • Reich PB Department of Forest Resources, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN, 55108, USA.
  • Schmid B Department of Geography, Remote Sensing Laboratories, University of Zurich, Winterthurerstrasse 190, 8057, Zurich, Switzerland.
  • Shrestha N Institute of Ecology and Key Laboratory for Earth Surface Processes of the Ministry of Education, College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, China.
  • Feng X Institute of the Environment, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, 85721, USA.
  • Lyu T Institute of Ecology and Key Laboratory for Earth Surface Processes of the Ministry of Education, College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, China.
  • Maitner BS Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, 85721, USA.
  • Xu X Institute of Ecology and Key Laboratory for Earth Surface Processes of the Ministry of Education, College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, China.
  • Li Y Institute of Ecology and Key Laboratory for Earth Surface Processes of the Ministry of Education, College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, China.
  • Zou D Institute of Ecology and Key Laboratory for Earth Surface Processes of the Ministry of Education, College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, China.
  • Tan ZH College of Environment and Ecology, Hainan University, Haikou, Hainan, 570228, China.
  • Su X Institute of Ecology and Key Laboratory for Earth Surface Processes of the Ministry of Education, College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, China.
  • Tang Z Institute of Ecology and Key Laboratory for Earth Surface Processes of the Ministry of Education, College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, China.
  • Guo Q State Key Laboratory of Vegetation and Environmental Change, Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100093, China.
  • Feng X State Key Laboratory of Vegetation and Environmental Change, Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100093, China.
  • Enquist BJ Institute of the Environment, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, 85721, USA.
  • Wang Z Institute of Ecology and Key Laboratory for Earth Surface Processes of the Ministry of Education, College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, China.
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  • 2020-04-07
Published in:
  • Ecology letters. - 2020
Annual evapotranspiration
China
North America
community mean leaf size
large-scale eco-evolutionary patterns
leaf area index
palaeo-primary productivity
plant functional traits
China
Ecosystem
Magnoliopsida
North America
Plant Leaves
English A key challenge in ecology is to understand the relationships between organismal traits and ecosystem processes. Here, with a novel dataset of leaf length and width for 10 480 woody dicots in China and 2374 in North America, we show that the variation in community mean leaf size is highly correlated with the variation in climate and ecosystem primary productivity, independent of plant life form. These relationships likely reflect how natural selection modifies leaf size across varying climates in conjunction with how climate influences canopy total leaf area. We find that the leaf size-primary productivity functions based on the Chinese dataset can predict productivity in North America and vice-versa. In addition to advancing understanding of the relationship between a climate-driven trait and ecosystem functioning, our findings suggest that leaf size can also be a promising tool in palaeoecology for scaling from fossil leaves to palaeo-primary productivity of woody ecosystems.
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  • English
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hybrid
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https://sonar.ch/global/documents/54197
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