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Plant Biomass Allocation across a Precipitation Gradient: An Approach to Seasonally Dry Tropical Forest at Yucatán, Mexico

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Abstract

It has been assumed that plant biomass partitioning to stems and roots at the ecosystem level follows a single strategy according to which the stem biomass scales isometrically with root biomass, a hypothesis known as ‘isometric scaling’. In this study, we examined an alternative theory used for plants: plant biomass is allocated preferentially to the plant organ that harvests the limiting growth resource, a theory known as the ‘balanced growth hypothesis’. Our objective was to test these two alternative hypotheses across a water availability gradient. We quantified the stem and root biomass in a seasonally dry tropical forest (SDTF) in three regions of the Yucatán peninsula along a precipitation gradient. Reduced major axis analysis showed that the slopes of the relationship between stem and root biomass across the study regions were statistically similar and significantly different from 1.0 (common slope = 2.5), which contrasts with the ‘isometric scaling’ hypothesis. The allometric coefficient was different between regions along the precipitation gradient, which showed that plant biomass allocation to stems is higher in high than in low water availability regions where biomass is allocated in greater proportions to roots. The stem:root ratio increases following the low to high water availability gradient. Our results showed that plant biomass allocation in the SDTF follows a simple allometric strategy in which greater plant biomass is allocated to stems irrespective of water availability, suggesting to the forest level that plant biomass allocation strategy is invariant across the water availability gradient.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Pamela Templer for valuable comments on an early version of the manuscript. We are also grateful to Ariel Lugo and anonymous referees for valuable comments on the submitted manuscript. We thank to José Erales Villamil for access to field sites at rancho Hobonil and Carlos Nah for access to his field sites at Chicxulub; to Plant–Insect Interactions in the Tropics laboratory staff for their valuable help in the field work, and to Enrique Solís for his help in the laboratory. The first author thanks Conesejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología-Mexico (CONACYT) for the grant supporting PhD studies, and Programa de Posgrado en Ciencias Biológicas (UNAM) for the academic and logistic support. This study was supported by PAPIIT-UNAM 220610 and CONACYT 60429 and 154754 grants.

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  1. Instituto de Ecología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Circuito Exterior s/n anexo al Jardín Botánico Exterior, 04510, Mexico, DF, Mexico

    Lilia L. Roa-Fuentes & Julio Campo

  2. Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán, Mérida, Yucatán, Mexico

    Víctor Parra-Tabla

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  1. Lilia L. Roa-Fuentes
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  2. Julio Campo
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Correspondence to Lilia L. Roa-Fuentes.

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Author Contributions

LLRF conceived of the study design and performed field and laboratory research. JC refined the study design and assisted with the research. LLRF and JC wrote the paper. VP contributed with the field experiment and the sites vegetation information.

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Roa-Fuentes, L.L., Campo, J. & Parra-Tabla, V. Plant Biomass Allocation across a Precipitation Gradient: An Approach to Seasonally Dry Tropical Forest at Yucatán, Mexico. Ecosystems 15, 1234–1244 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10021-012-9578-3

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