Distribution of leaflet traits across different habitats: a phylogenetically controlled test using Neotropical palms

Oda, Gabriela A.; Portela, Rita C. Q.; Pires, Alexandra S.; Baker, William J.; Emilio, Thaise

doi:10.1080/17550874.2023.2291044

Cited by 1 publication

(1 citation statement)

References 53 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…To what extent the environment drives phenotypic plasticity or genetic adaptation in leaf N and P stoichiometry also within species remains challenging to detect but is informative for testing the Biogeochemical Niche Hypothesis. Linear mixed-effect models (LMMs) have been widely employed for separating phylogenetic and environmental effects on leaf traits 21 , 35 , motivated by their suitability to model structured data and their ability to control for phylogenetic effects and species identity as random terms, implicitly assuming that they are unrelated to the environment and given precedence over the latter in model fitting. More recently, tree-based statistical learning methods, for example, random forest models (RF), have been shown to be suitable for modeling leaf N and P 36 , 37 .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Environmental versus phylogenetic controls on leaf nitrogen and phosphorous concentrations in vascular plants

Tian,

Yan,

Schmid

et al. 2024

Nat Commun

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Global patterns of leaf nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) stoichiometry have been interpreted as reflecting phenotypic plasticity in response to the environment, or as an overriding effect of the distribution of species growing in their biogeochemical niches. Here, we balance these contrasting views. We compile a global dataset of 36,413 paired observations of leaf N and P concentrations, taxonomy and 45 environmental covariates, covering 7,549 sites and 3,700 species, to investigate how species identity and environmental variables control variations in mass-based leaf N and P concentrations, and the N:P ratio. We find within-species variation contributes around half of the total variation, with 29%, 31%, and 22% of leaf N, P, and N:P variation, respectively, explained by environmental variables. Within-species plasticity along environmental gradients varies across species and is highest for leaf N:P and lowest for leaf N. We identified effects of environmental variables on within-species variation using random forest models, whereas effects were largely missed by widely used linear mixed-effect models. Our analysis demonstrates a substantial influence of the environment in driving plastic responses of leaf N, P, and N:P within species, which challenges reports of a fixed biogeochemical niche and the overriding importance of species distributions in shaping global patterns of leaf N and P.

show abstract