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Abundance-weighted plant functional trait variation differs between terrestrial and wetland habitats along wide climatic gradients

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Abstract

Patterns of plant trait variation across spatial scales are important for understanding ecosystem functioning and services. However, habitat-related drivers of these patterns are poorly understood. In a conceptual model, we ask whether and how the patterns of within- and among-site plant trait variation are driven by habitat type (terrestrial vs. wetland) across large climatic gradients. We tested these through spatial-hierarchical-sampling of leaves in herbaceous-dominated terrestrial and wetland communities within each of 26 sites across China. For all 13 plant traits, within-site variation was larger than among-site variation in both terrestrial and wetland habitats. Within-site variation was similar in most leaf traits related to carbon and nutrient economics but larger in specific leaf area and size-related traits (plant height, leaf area and thickness) in wetland compared to terrestrial habitats. Among-site variation was larger in terrestrial than wetland habitats for 10 leaf traits but smaller for plant height, leaf area and leaf nitrogen. Our results indicate the important role of local ecological processes in driving plant trait variation among coexisting species and the dependence of functional variation across habitats on traits considered. These findings will help to understand and predict the effects of climatic or land-use changes on ecosystem functioning and services.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2017YFC0506200), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31670429, 31400346, 31470712 and 31901149), and the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW, CEP grant 12CDP007) for research visits of J.H.C.C. to China and of Y.K.H., Y.B.S., G.F.L. and X.P. to Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. We are very grateful to Xue-Hua Ye, Tao Xiao, Ling-Yun Chen, Shuang-Li Tang, Meng-Yao Zhou, Wei Xiong, Can Jiang, Ya-Lin Zhang, Hong-Ke Xu, Yan-Fang Fang, Ze-Ning Jin, Shu-Min Zhang, and Xu-Yan Liu for their help in fieldwork and/or laboratory analysis. We also thank Hai-Lang Zhou, Ke-Liang Zhang, Zhi-Xi Fu and Wei-Bo Du for their assistance in plant identification.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Hangzhou City for Ecosystem Protection and Restoration, College of Life and Environmental Sciences, Hangzhou Normal University, Hangzhou, 311121, China

    Yu-Kun Hu, Yao-Bin Song & Ming Dong

  2. State Key Laboratory of Vegetation and Environmental Change, Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100093, China

    Yu-Kun Hu, Guo-Fang Liu & Ming Dong

  3. Beijing Key Laboratory of Wetland Services and Restoration, Institute of Wetland Research, Chinese Academy of Forestry, Beijing, 100091, China

    Yu-Kun Hu & Xu Pan

  4. Systems Ecology, Department of Ecological Science, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, De Boelelaan 1085, 1081 HV, Amsterdam, the Netherlands

    Johannes H. C. Cornelissen

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  1. Yu-Kun Hu
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  3. Xu Pan
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  4. Yao-Bin Song
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Correspondence to Yao-Bin Song or Ming Dong.

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Abundance-weighted plant functional trait variation differs between terrestrial and wetland habitats along wide climatic gradients

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Hu, YK., Liu, GF., Pan, X. et al. Abundance-weighted plant functional trait variation differs between terrestrial and wetland habitats along wide climatic gradients. Sci. China Life Sci. 64, 593–605 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11427-020-1766-1

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