Leaf economics fundamentals explained by optimality principles
File(s)
Published version
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
The life span of leaves increases with their mass per unit area (LMA). It is unclear why. Here, we show that this empirical generalization (the foundation of the worldwide leaf economics spectrum) is a consequence of natural selection, maximizing average net carbon gain over the leaf life cycle. Analyzing two large leaf trait datasets, we show that evergreen and deciduous species with diverse construction costs (assumed proportional to LMA) are selected by light, temperature, and growing-season length in different, but predictable, ways. We quantitatively explain the observed divergent latitudinal trends in evergreen and deciduous LMA and show how local distributions of LMA arise by selection under different environmental conditions acting on the species pool. These results illustrate how optimality principles can underpin a new theory for plant geography and terrestrial carbon dynamics.
Date Issued
2023-01-01
Date Acceptance
2022-11-11
Citation
Science Advances, 2023, 9 (3)
ISSN
2375-2548
Publisher
American Association for the Advancement of Science
Journal / Book Title
Science Advances
Volume
9
Issue
3
Copyright Statement
© 2023 The Authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement of Science. No claim to original U.S. Government Works. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial License 4.0 (CC BY-NC). https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial license, which permits use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, so long as the resultant use is not for commercial advantage and provided the original work is properly cited.
License URL
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
ARTN eadd566
Date Publish Online
2023-01-19