Leaf traits may reflect the adaptation mechanisms of plants to the environment. In this study, we investigated leaf morphological and anatomical traits in nine cold-temperate to tropical forests along a 4,200-km transect to test how they vary across latitudinal gradients. The results showed that leaf dry weight decreased (P < 0.05), while specific leaf area (SLA) increased (P < 0.05) with incre...

1. Patterns of growth, activity and renewal of stems and branches are primary determinants of ecosystem function and strongly influence net primary productivity, water and energy balance. Here we compare patterns of leaf phenology, stem radial growth and branch growth of co-occurring savanna and forest trees in the Cerrado region of central Brazil to gain insight into the influence of these par...

PREMISE OF THE STUDY Darwin first proposed that species with larger ecological breadth have greater phenotypic variation. We tested this hypothesis by comparing intraspecific variation in specific leaf area (SLA) to species' local elevational range and by assessing how external (abiotic) filters may influence observed differences in ecological breadth among species. Understanding the patterns o...

growth traits, yield and fruit quality in ‘synda’ tomato were compared with those in tomatoes grafted onto either ‘king kong’ rootstock or onto their own rootstocks, (trained as single or double stem), and at two fruit thinning levels, of: no thinning or thinned to five fruits per truss. the data related to crop growth rate (cgr), relative growth rate (rgr), net assimilation rate (nar), leaf ar...

The leaf carbon isotope ratio (δ(13) C) of C3 plants is inversely related to the drawdown of CO2 concentration during photosynthesis, which increases towards drier environments. We aimed to discriminate between the hypothesis of universal scaling, which predicts between-species responses of δ(13) C to aridity similar to within-species responses, and biotic homoeostasis, which predicts offsets i...

BACKGROUND AND AIMS When ecologically important plant traits are correlated they may be said to constitute an ecological 'strategy' dimension. Through identifying these dimensions and understanding their inter-relationships we gain insight into why particular trait combinations are favoured over others and into the implications of trait differences among species. Here we investigated relationsh...

Common reed (Phragmites australis (Cav.) Trin. ex Steud.) is distributed widely throughout the world with various ecotypes. This research compares the functional traits and biomass allocation patterns of two contrasting reed ecotypes. Twelve pairs of aquatic and terrestrial reed samples were collected in northern China. Significant differences in functional traits between the two reed ecotypes ...

Two greenhouse experiments were carried out at the Institute of Biological Production Systems, Leibniz Universität Hannover, Germany during 2008/2009 and 2009/2010 growing seasons to study the influence of the osmotic adjustment (OA) capacity, relative water content (RWC) and specific leaf area (SLA) on tolerance to drought in 22 breeding lines, two parents and tolerant cultivar (Sahel 1) of br...

1 The savanna–forest boundary in the tropics is marked by a discontinuity not only in tree density, but also in species composition, with few tree species regularly occurring in both savanna and forest environments. 2 We performed comparative growth analysis for nine congeneric pairs, each containing one savanna species and one forest species, grown in a factorial design involving two light and...