There is more than metaphorical appeal to the thought that humanity feeds off the sweat of vascular plants. This statement has factual grounds in the sense that plant water loss by transpiration is an inevitable companion to the photosynthetic process that nourishes the human population. A fascinating corollary of this linkage between water and carbon is that leaf productivity in well-watered p...

Leaf N concentration is important because it is associated with the CO2 assimilatory capacity of crops, and in grasslands, it is an important determinant of forage nutritive value. Consequently, the productivity of both domestic and native animals in future global environments may be closely linked to possible changes in leaf N concentration of grasses. Since grasslands are frequently subjected...

Natural grassland productivity, which is based on an individual plant's aboveground biomass (AB) and its interaction with herbivores, can obviously affect terrestrial ecosystem services and the grassland's agricultural production. As plant traits have been linked to both AB and ecosystem success, they may provide a useful approach to understand the changes in individual plants and grassland pro...

A declining Picea abies (L.) Karst. stand produced as much foliage and branches as a healthy stand but less stemwood at a similar leaf area index and climate. Nutrient analyses revealed that most biomass components at the declining site had lower concentrations of calcium and magnesium, but similar nitrogen and potassium (except for lower potassium in younger needles) and higher phosphorus , ma...

Potential increases in plant productivity in response to increasing atmospheric CO(2) concentration are likely to be constrained by nutrient limitations. However, the interactive effects of nitrogen nutrition and CO(2) concentration on growth are difficult to define because both factors affect several aspects of growth, including photosynthesis, respiration, and leaf area. By expressing growth ...

We investigated leaf physiological traits of dominant canopy trees in four lowland Panamanian forests with contrasting mean annual precipitation (1,800, 2,300, 3,100 and 3,500 mm). There was near complete turn-over of dominant canopy tree species among sites, resulting in greater dominance of evergreen species with long-lived leaves as precipitation increased. Mean structural and physiological ...

Decomposing litter in forest ecosystems supplies nutrients to plants, carbon to heterotrophic soil microorganisms and is a large source of CO2 to the atmosphere. Despite its essential role in carbon and nutrient cycling, the temperature sensitivity of leaf litter decay in tropical forest ecosystems remains poorly resolved, especially in tropical montane wet forests where the warming trend may b...

Salt-affected soil is one of the most important abiotic stresses, leading to reduce rice productivity in many regions of the world. The objective of this investigation was to determine the Na, soluble sugar and starch contents and expression of some starch-related genes in two genotypes, Pokkali (salt tolerant) and IR29 (salt sensitive), grown under 200 mM NaCl. Three-week-old rice seedlings cv...

Methods We developed a new approach to modelling the aboveground biomass of old-growth forest (AGBmax) based on the influences of temperature on gross primary productivity (GPP) and what we call total maintenance cost (TMC), which includes autotrophic respiration as well as leaf, stem and other plant construction required to maintain biomass. We parameterized the models with measured carbon flu...

Young individuals of a single black cottonwood (Populus trichocarpa Torr. & Gray) clone were raised for three growing seasons in whole-tree chambers and exposed to either ambient or elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration ([CO2]), with either a high or a low mineral nutrient supply, in a factorial experimental design. Nutrient availability had a larger effect on growth and dry matter ...