Are photosynthetic leaf traits related to the first-year growth of tropical tree seedlings? A light-induced plasticity test in a secondary forest enrichment planting

Santos, Victor Alexandre Hardt Ferreira dos; Ferreira, Marciel José

doi:10.1016/j.foreco.2020.117900

Cited by 25 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 54 publications

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“…For plants, as sessile organisms, phenotypic plasticity is essential for survival in such heterogeneous environments [3,[5][6][7][8]. This phenotypic plasticity and the consequent intraspecific variation also greatly influence community-level plant traits and productivity [9][10][11][12][13][14][15], highlighting the importance of the quantification of phenotypic plasticity of plant traits under different light environments.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For maximizing net photosynthetic carbon gain, acclimation of leaf physiological traits [24,25] and biomass allocation patterns [18,24,25] are both important strategies. Within a species, plants grown in shaded places have leaves with a lower light-saturated photosynthetic rate [1][2][3][4][5][6][7]15,[18][19][20][26][27][28][29][30][31] and a lower dark respiration rate [1][2][3][4][5][6][7]18], have thinner leaves with a lower leaf mass per unit area associated with their lower biomass investment per unit area [4,15,[18][19][20][27][28][29][32][33][34], and have a higher leaf mass ratio (i.e., leaf mass relative to whole-plant mass) [5,18,25,28] than plants grown in well-lit places. Analogous leaf acclimation to different light environments has also been reported for sunlit and shaded leaves wi...…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Photosynthetic and Morphological Acclimation to High and Low Light Environments in Petasites japonicus subsp. giganteus

Deguchi

Koyama

2020

Forests

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Within each species, leaf traits such as light-saturated photosynthetic rate or dark respiration rate acclimate to local light environment. Comparing only static physiological traits, however, may not be sufficient to evaluate the effects of such acclimation in the shade because the light environment changes diurnally. We investigated leaf photosynthetic and morphological acclimation for a perennial herb, butterbur (Petasites japonicus (Siebold et Zucc.) Maxim. subsp. giganteus (G.Nicholson) Kitam.) (Asteraceae), in both a well-lit clearing and a shaded understory of a temperate forest. Diurnal changes in light intensity incident on the leaves were also measured on a sunny day and an overcast day. Leaves in the clearing were more folded and upright, whereas leaves in the understory were flatter. Leaf mass per area (LMA) was approximately twofold higher in the clearing than in the understory, while light-saturated photosynthetic rate and dark respiration rate per unit mass of leaf were similar between the sites. Consequently, both light-saturated photosynthetic rate and dark respiration rate per unit area of leaf were approximately twofold higher in the clearing than in the understory, consistent with previous studies on different species. Using this experimental dataset, we performed a simulation in which sun and shade leaves were hypothetically exchanged to investigate whether such plasticity increased carbon gain at each local environment. As expected, in the clearing, the locally acclimated sun leaves gained more carbon than the hypothetically transferred shade leaves. By contrast, in the understory, the daily net carbon gain was similar between the simulated sun and shade leaves on the sunny day due to the frequent sunflecks. Lower LMA and lower photosynthetic capacity in the understory reduced leaf construction cost per area rather than maximizing net daily carbon gain. These results indicate that information on static photosynthetic parameters may not be sufficient to evaluate shade acclimation in forest understories.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Photosynthetic and Morphological Acclimation to High and Low Light Environments in Petasites japonicus subsp. giganteus

Deguchi

Koyama

2020

Forests

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“…Higher specific rhizome length (SRL) resulted in lower ramet density in shade ( Figure 2 a; Figure 4 a,b). The SRL reflects the achievement of unit length of elongation per unit investment of biomass (similar to specific leaf area [ 32 , 69 , 70 , 71 , 72 , 73 ]). A higher SRL in shade was consistent with the results of other herbaceous clonal species ( Glechoma hederacea [ 7 ] and Reynoutria japonica [ 18 ]).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Shade Avoidance and Light Foraging of a Clonal Woody Species, Pachysandra terminalis

Iwabe

Koyama

Komamura

2021

Plants

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(1) Background: A central subject in clonal plant ecology is to elucidate the mechanism by which clones forage resources in heterogeneous environments. Compared with studies conducted in laboratories or experimental gardens, studies on light foraging of forest woody clonal plants in their natural habitats are limited. (2) Methods: We investigated wild populations of an evergreen clonal understory shrub, Japanese pachysandra (Pachysandra terminalis Siebold & Zucc.), in two cool-temperate forests in Japan. (3) Results: Similar to the results of herbaceous clonal species, this species formed a dense stand in a relatively well-lit place, and a sparse stand in a shaded place. Higher specific rhizome length (i.e., length per unit mass) in shade resulted in lower ramet population density in shade. The individual leaf area, whole-ramet leaf area, or ramet height did not increase with increased light availability. The number of flower buds per flowering ramet increased as the canopy openness or population density increased. (4) Conclusions: Our results provide the first empirical evidence of shade avoidance and light foraging with morphological plasticity for a clonal woody species.

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“…For example, a maximum photosynthetic rate (A max ) increases positively according to specific leaf area (SLA) among species (Wright et al, 2004), but across a light gradient the intraspecific correlation is negative, as acclimation of leaves to high light increases A max but reduces SLA (Kenzo et al, 2015;Santos & Ferreira, 2020b). Furthermore, trait-growth relationships may also change according to light environment (Poorter, 1999).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, hard traits are more informative of physiological processes that drive plant performance because they highlight, for example, the different steps of photosynthesis (Santos & Ferreira, 2020b;Volaire et al, 2020;Worthy & Swenson, 2019;Yang et al, 2018).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Testing for functional significance of traits: Effect of the light environment in tropical tree saplings

Modolo

Santos

Ferreira

2021

Ecology and Evolution

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Are photosynthetic leaf traits related to the first-year growth of tropical tree seedlings? A light-induced plasticity test in a secondary forest enrichment planting

Cited by 25 publications

References 54 publications

Photosynthetic and Morphological Acclimation to High and Low Light Environments in Petasites japonicus subsp. giganteus

Photosynthetic and Morphological Acclimation to High and Low Light Environments in Petasites japonicus subsp. giganteus

Shade Avoidance and Light Foraging of a Clonal Woody Species, Pachysandra terminalis

Testing for functional significance of traits: Effect of the light environment in tropical tree saplings

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