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Relationships between leaf morphological traits, nutrient concentrations and isotopic signatures for Mediterranean woody plant species and communities

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Abstract

Background and aims

Soil factors are driving forces that influence spatial distribution and functional traits of plant species. We test whether two anchor morphological traits—leaf mass per area (LMA) and leaf dry matter content (LDMC)—are significantly related to a broad range of leaf nutrient concentrations in Mediterranean woody plant species. We also explore the main environmental filters (light availability, soil moisture and soil nutrients) that determine the patterns of these functional traits in a forest stand.

Methods

Four morphological and 19 chemical leaf traits (macronutrients and trace elements and δ13C and δ15N signatures) were analysed in 17 woody plant species. Community-weighted leaf traits were calculated for 57 plots within the forest. Links between LMA, LDMC and other leaf traits were analysed at the species and the community level using standardised major axis (SMA) regressions

Results

LMA and LDMC were significantly related to many leaf nutrient concentrations, but only when using abundance-weighted values at community level. Among-traits links were much weaker for the cross-species analysis. Nitrogen isotopic signatures were useful to understand different resource-use strategies. Community-weighted LMA and LDMC were negatively related to light availability, contrary to what was expected.

Conclusion

Community leaf traits have parallel shifts along the environmental factors that determine the community assembly, even though they are weakly related across individual taxa. Light availability is the main environmental factor determining this convergence of the community leaf traits.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the Consejería de Medio Ambiente (Andalusian Government) and Marco Antonio Tena, then Director of Los Alcornocales Natural Park, for the facilities and support to carry out our field work. We are grateful to Eduardo Gutiérrez, Marga Santaella and Ramón Redondo for field and/or lab assistance, to José Manuel Murillo, Lourens Poorter and three anonymous reviewers for their comments on the manuscript. This study was supported by a FPI-MEC grant to CA and a postdoctoral-MEC grant to MTD, by the Spanish MEC projects DINAMED (CGL2005-5830-C03-01 and −02) INTERBOS (CGL2008-4503-C03-01 and −02) and DIVERBOS (CGL2011-30285-C02-01 and 02), and European FEDER funds.

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  1. María T. Domínguez

    Present address: Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, Environment Centre Wales, Deiniol Road, Bangor, Gwynedd, LL57 2UW, UK

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Instituto de Recursos Naturales y Agrobiología de Sevilla, IRNAS, CSIC, PO Box 1052, 41080, Seville, Spain

    María T. Domínguez, Cristina Aponte, Ignacio M. Pérez-Ramos, Luis V. García & Teodoro Marañón

  2. Área de Ecología, Edificio Celestino Mutis, Campus de Rabanales, Universidad de Córdoba, 14071, Córdoba, Spain

    Rafael Villar

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Domínguez, M.T., Aponte, C., Pérez-Ramos, I.M. et al. Relationships between leaf morphological traits, nutrient concentrations and isotopic signatures for Mediterranean woody plant species and communities. Plant Soil 357, 407–424 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-012-1214-7

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