In competition-dominated communities, traits promoting resource conservation and competitive ability are expected to have an important influence on species relative abundance (SRA). Yet, few studies have tested the trait-abundance relations in the line of species trade-off in resource conservation versus acquisition, indicating by multiple traits coordination. We measured SRA and key functional...

Photosynthetic capacity is one of the most sensitive parameters in vegetation models and its relationship to leaf nitrogen content links the carbon and nitrogen cycles. Process understanding for reliably predicting photosynthetic capacity is still missing. To advance this understanding we have tested across C(3) plant species the coordination hypothesis, which assumes nitrogen allocation to pho...

The focus of the present study is the estimation of leaf area index (LAI) and the assessment of allometric equations for predicting the leaf area of Lebanon oaks (Quercus libani Oliv.) in Iran’s northern Zagros forests. To that end, 50 oak trees were randomly selected and their biophysical parameters were measured. Then, on the basis of destructive sampling of the oak trees, their specific leaf...

in order to evaluate the effects of drought stress at different phenological stages on growth indices of chickpea (cicer arietinum l.) cultivar jam, an experiment was carried out at the research greenhouse of faculty of agriculture, ferdowsi university of mashhad, using a completely randomized design with four replications. drought stress was applied by preventing irrigation until the soil mois...

Classical approaches to investigating temporal and spatial changes in community composition offer only partial insight into the ecology that drives species distribution, community patterns and processes, whereas a functional approach can help to determine many of the underlying mechanisms that drive such patterns. Here, we aim to bring these two approaches together to understand such drivers, u...

Plant traits mirror both evolutionary and environmental filtering process with universal trait-trait relationships across plant groups. However, plants also develop unique precisely to different habitats, inducing deviations of the trait coupling relations. In this study, we aimed compare differences in leaf examine generality shifts between alpine aquatic terrestrial herbaceous on Tibetan Plat...

It is important to understand how eco-physiological characteristics shift in forests when elucidating the mechanisms underlying species replacement and the process of succession and stabilization. In this study, the dominant species at three typical successional stages (early-, mid-, and late-succession) in the subtropical forests of China were selected. At each stage, we compared the leaf cons...

A 4-year fertilization experiment with nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) was carried out in natural gaps of a subtropical forest in northeastern Argentina. Saplings of six dominant canopy species differing in shade tolerance were grown in five control and five N + P fertilized gaps. Hydraulic architectural traits such as wood density, the leaf area to sapwood area ratio (LA : SA), vulnerability t...

BACKGROUND AND AIMS Plant relative growth rate (RGR) depends on biomass allocation to leaves (leaf mass fraction, LMF), efficient construction of leaf surface area (specific leaf area, SLA) and biomass growth per unit leaf area (net assimilation rate, NAR). Functional groups of species may differ in any of these traits, potentially resulting in (1) differences in mean RGR of groups, and (2) dif...

(Seedling growth of fifteen Brazilian tropical tree species differing in successional status). Growth of seedlings of fifteen tropical tree species representative, at the adult stage, of different successional positions, was studied under field conditions. Seedlings were grown in three treatments: full sun (FS), artificial shade imposed by neutral screens (AS) and natural shade imposed by a clo...