Leaf Vein Morphological Variation in Four Endangered Neotropical Magnolia Species along an Elevation Gradient in the Mexican Tropical Montane Cloud Forests

Abstract

Climatic variations influence the adaptive capacity of trees within tropical montane cloud forests species. Phenology studies have dominated current studies on tree species. Leaf vein morphology has been related to specific climatic oscillations and varies within species along altitudinal gradients. We tested that certain Neotropical broad leaf Magnolia species might be more vulnerable to leaf vein adaptation to moisture than others, as they would be more resilient to the hydric deficit. We assessed that leaf vein trait variations (vein density, primary vein size, vein length, and leaf base angle) among four Magnolia species (Magnolia nuevoleonensis, M. alejandrae, M. rzedowskiana, and Magnolia vovidesii) through the Mexican Tropical montane cloud forest with different elevation gradient and specific climatic factors. The temperature, precipitation, and potential evaporation differed significantly among Magnolia species. We detected that M. rzedowskiana and M. vovidesii with longer leaves at higher altitude sites are adapted to higher humidity conditions, and that M. nuevoleonensis and M. alejandrae inhabiting lower altitude sites are better adjusted to the hydric deficit. Our results advance efforts to identify the Magnolia species most vulnerable to climate change effects, which must focus priorities for conservation of this ecosystem, particularly in the Mexican tropical montane cloud forests.

Leaf Traits of Parashorea malaanonan Along Elevational Gradient in Mount Makiling Forest Reserve, Philippines

“…Our findings were consistent with that of Blonder and Enquist (2014), who discovered that VD was negatively correlated with elevational gradient. In contrast, Rodríguez-Ramírez et al (2021) discovered a positive relationship between vein density and elevation of Magnolia spp. Previous results were attributed to different functional groups of plants based on their growth and/or survival strategy (Albert et al 2010).…”

Threatened Trees Characteristic of Mexican Tropical Montane Cloud Forests

“…The TMCF is a highly discontinuous vegetation type essential for the survival of many species studied, such as Fagus grandifolia subsp. mexicana [8,62] and some species of Magnolia [24,32], which are dominant species in some parts of eastern Mexico. Furthermore, because many of the TMCFs isolated patches are not protected, their situation is critical since agriculture and animal husbandry expansion are constant threats [5,7].…”

“…Previous studies analyzing the distributional patterns related to the richness, phylogenetic composition, biogeography, and floristics of vascular plants inhabiting the Mexican TMCF have been performed, and many of the products come from our own research, e.g., [4,5,11,[15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25]. Furthermore, our previous research included vegetation structure investigation of the arboreal stratum, where several endangered trees have their place [26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33]. In addition, some other studies are related to the impact of climate change on endangered tree species of the Mexican TMCF [9,10,[33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40].…”

Plant leaf veins coupling feature representation and measurement method based on DeepLabV3+

“…Meanwhile, leaf vein morphology is associated with specific climatic oscillations and varies within species along altitudinal gradients. By measuring the leaf veins’ parameters, the quality of the local ecosystem can be reflected ( Rodríguez-Ramírez et al., 2021 ). Therefore, to achieve a quantitative analysis of the growth state of crops, leaf veins’ segmentation and parameters’ measurement techniques are paramount for agriculture ( Li et al., 2006 ; Radha and Jeyalakshmi, 2014 ; Zhu et al., 2020 ).…”