Relationships of leaf dark respiration to leaf nitrogen, specific leaf area and leaf life-span: a test across biomes and functional groups |
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Authors: | Peter B Reich Michael B Walters David S Ellsworth James M Vose John C Volin Charles Gresham William D Bowman |
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Institution: | (1) Department of Forest Resources, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN 55108, USA Fax 612-625-5212; e-mail: preich@forestry.umn.edu, US;(2) Faculty of Natural Resources and Environmental Studies, University of Northern British Columbia, Prince George, BC, Canada V2N 4Z9, CA;(3) Department of Applied Science, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, NY 11973, USA, US;(4) U.S. Forest Service, Coweeta Hydrological Lab., Otto, NC 28763, USA, US;(5) Division of Science, Florida Atlantic University, Davie, FL 33314, USA, US;(6) Baruch Forest Institute, Clemson University, Georgetown, SC 29442, USA, US;(7) Mountain Research Station, Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, and Department of EPO Biology, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309, USA, US |
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Abstract: | Based on prior evidence of coordinated multiple leaf trait scaling, we hypothesized that variation among species in leaf
dark respiration rate (R
d) should scale with variation in traits such as leaf nitrogen (N), leaf life-span, specific leaf area (SLA), and net photosynthetic
capacity (A
max). However, it is not known whether such scaling, if it exists, is similar among disparate biomes and plant functional types.
We tested this idea by examining the interspecific relationships between R
d measured at a standard temperature and leaf life-span, N, SLA and A
max for 69 species from four functional groups (forbs, broad-leafed trees and shrubs, and needle-leafed conifers) in six biomes
traversing the Americas: alpine tundra/subalpine forest, Colorado; cold temperate forest/grassland, Wisconsin; cool temperate
forest, North Carolina; desert/shrubland, New Mexico; subtropical forest, South Carolina; and tropical rain forest, Amazonas,
Venezuela. Area-based R
d was positively related to area-based leaf N within functional groups and for all species pooled, but not when comparing among
species within any site. At all sites, mass-based R
d (R
d-mass) decreased sharply with increasing leaf life-span and was positively related to SLA and mass-based A
max and leaf N (leaf N
mass). These intra-biome relationships were similar in shape and slope among sites, where in each case we compared species belonging
to different plant functional groups. Significant R
d-mass−N
mass relationships were observed in all functional groups (pooled across sites), but the relationships differed, with higher R
d at any given leaf N in functional groups (such as forbs) with higher SLA and shorter leaf life-span. Regardless of biome
or functional group, R
d-mass was well predicted by all combinations of leaf life-span, N
mass and/or SLA (r
2≥ 0.79, P < 0.0001). At any given SLA, R
d-mass rises with increasing N
mass and/or decreasing leaf life-span; and at any level of N
mass, R
d-mass rises with increasing SLA and/or decreasing leaf life-span. The relationships between R
d and leaf traits observed in this study support the idea of a global set of predictable interrelationships between key leaf
morphological, chemical and metabolic traits.
Received: 23 May 1997 / Accepted: 16 December 1997 |
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Keywords: | Respiration Leaf life-span Specific leaf area Nitrogen Functional groups |
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