School of Earth, Environmental, and Marine Sciences Faculty Publications and Presentations
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1-31-2019
Abstract
Woody plants vary in their adaptations to drought and shade. For a better prediction of vegetation responses to drought and shade within dynamic global vegetation models, it is critical to group species into functional types with similar adaptations. One of the key challenges is that the adaptations are generally determined by a large number of plant traits that may not be available for a large number of species. In this study, we present two heuristic woody plant groups that were separated using cluster analysis in a three-dimensional trait–environment space based on three key metrics for each species: mean xylem embolism resistance, shade tolerance and habitat aridity. The two heuristic groups separate these species into tolerators and avoiders. The tolerators either rely on their high embolism resistance to tolerate drought in arid habitats (e.g., Juniperus and Prunus) or rely on high shade tolerance to withstand shaded conditions in wet habitats (e.g., Picea, Abies and Acer). In contrast, all avoiders have low embolism resistance and low shade tolerance. In arid habitats, avoiders tend to minimize catastrophic embolism (e.g., most Pinus species) while in wet habitats, they may survive despite low shade tolerance (e.g., Betula, Populus, Alnus and Salix). Because our approach links traits to the environmental conditions, we expect it could be a promising framework for predicting changes in species composition, and therefore ecosystem function, under changing environmental conditions.
Recommended Citation
Liang Wei, Chonggang Xu, Steven Jansen, Hang Zhou, Bradley O Christoffersen, William T Pockman, Richard S Middleton, John D Marshall, Nate G McDowell, A heuristic classification of woody plants based on contrasting shade and drought strategies, Tree Physiology, Volume 39, Issue 5, May 2019, Pages 767–781, https://doi.org/10.1093/treephys/tpy146
First Page
767
Last Page
781
Publication Title
Tree Physiology
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1093/treephys/tpy146
Included in
Earth Sciences Commons, Environmental Sciences Commons, Marine Biology Commons, Plant Sciences Commons
Comments
Published by Oxford University Press 2019. This work is written by (a) US Government employee(s) and is in the public domain in the US. Original published version available at doi.org/10.1093/treephys/tpy146