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Morphological and moisture availability controls of the leaf area-to-sapwood area ratio: analysis of measurements on Australian trees
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Morphological and moisture availability controls of the leaf area-to-sapwood area ratio: analysis of measurements on Australian trees.pdf | Published version | 542.91 kB | Adobe PDF | View/Open |
Title: | Morphological and moisture availability controls of the leaf area-to-sapwood area ratio: analysis of measurements on Australian trees |
Authors: | Togashi, HF Prentice, IC Evans, BJ Forrester, DI Drake, P Feikema, P Brooksbank, K Eamus, D Taylor, D |
Item Type: | Journal Article |
Abstract: | 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. 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. 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. |
Issue Date: | 25-Feb-2015 |
Date of Acceptance: | 27-Oct-2014 |
URI: | http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/56730 |
DOI: | https://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ece3.1344 |
ISSN: | 2045-7758 |
Publisher: | WILEY-BLACKWELL |
Start Page: | 1263 |
End Page: | 1270 |
Journal / Book Title: | ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION |
Volume: | 5 |
Issue: | 6 |
Copyright Statement: | © 2015 The Authors. Ecology and Evolution published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
Keywords: | Science & Technology Life Sciences & Biomedicine Ecology Evolutionary Biology Environmental Sciences & Ecology Climatic moisture leaf area pipe model plant hydraulics sapwood area tree morphology QUANTILE REGRESSION SCOTS PINE WATER-USE HEIGHT CONDUCTANCE DIAMETER FOREST CONVERGENCE ACCLIMATION ALLOCATION |
Publication Status: | Published |
Appears in Collections: | Department of Life Sciences Grantham Institute for Climate Change Faculty of Natural Sciences |