Plant leaf economics and reproductive investment are responsive to gradients of land use intensity

Lienin, Patrick; Kleyer, Michael

doi:10.1016/j.agee.2011.03.015

Cited by 24 publications

(40 citation statements)

References 61 publications

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“…high C:N leaf ratio). Our results suggest the positive relationship of the economics spectra with soil resources that is applicable to other habitats (compare Lienin & Kleyer ) could be reversed by strong non‐consumable environmental factors such as inundation and salinity (Minden et al. ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 68%

Ecosystem multifunctionality of coastal marshes is determined by key plant traits

Minden

Kleyer

2015

J Vegetation Science

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Questions As biodiversity losses increase due to global change and human‐induced habitat destruction, the relationships between plant traits and ecosystem properties can provide a new level of understanding ecosystem complexity. Using a functional response–effect approach, we show that multiple components of the carbon cycle are determined by a few plant traits, which in turn are strongly affected by environmental conditions. Location Salt marshes, northwest Germany. Methods We explored responses of morphological, chemical and biomass‐related plant traits to environmental drivers and examined their effects on carbon cycle properties, i.e. above‐ground biomass, above‐ground net primary productivity and decomposition. The combined analysis between environmental parameters, functional traits and ecosystem properties used structural equation modelling (SEM). Results Important response and effect traits were leaf dry matter content (LDMC) and below‐ground dry mass (BDM, responding to groundwater level and salinity) and leaf C:N ratio (responding to inundation frequency). Inundation and salinity led to increased allocation to below‐ground biomass and salt stress adaptation in leaves, which translated into increased decomposition rates. Release from these abiotic controls resulted in standing biomass accumulation, which was controlled by LDMC and canopy height as key traits. Conclusions These findings demonstrate the interacting effects of non‐consumable environmental factors and soil resources on morphological, chemical and biomass traits, which affected carbon cycle properties. Loss of species from the community has the potential to change the relationships between environment and vegetation‐based ecosystem properties and therefore elicit effects on the multifunctionality of the entire and adjacent ecosystems.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 68%

Ecosystem multifunctionality of coastal marshes is determined by key plant traits

Minden

Kleyer

2015

J Vegetation Science

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“…, Quétier et al. , Lienin and Kleyer , Garnier and Navas ), and others on weed crops (Gunton et al. , Fried et al.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 96%

Land‐use intensification effects on functional properties in tropical plant communities

Carreño‐Rocabado

Peña‐Claros

Bongers

et al. 2016

Ecological Applications

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There is consensus that plant diversity and ecosystem processes are negatively affected by land-use intensification (LUI), but, at the same time, there is empirical evidence that a large heterogeneity can be found in the responses. This heterogeneity is especially poorly understood in tropical ecosystems. We evaluated changes in community functional properties across five common land-use types in the wet tropics with different land-use intensity: mature forest, logged forest, secondary forest, agricultural land, and pastureland, located in the lowlands of Bolivia. For the dominant plant species, we measured 12 functional response traits related to their life history, acquisition and conservation of resources, plant domestication, and breeding. We used three single-trait metrics to describe community functional properties: community abundance-weighted mean (CWM) traits values, coefficient of variation, and kurtosis of distribution. The CWM of all 12 traits clearly responded to LUI. Overall, we found that an increase in LUI resulted in communities dominated by plants with acquisitive leaf trait values. However, contrary to our expectations, secondary forests had more conservative trait values (i.e., lower specific leaf area) than mature and logged forest, probably because they were dominated by palm species. Functional variation peaked at intermediate land-use intensity (high coefficient of variation and low kurtosis), which included secondary forest but, unexpectedly, also agricultural land, which is an intensely managed system. The high functional variation of these systems is due to a combination of how response traits (and species) are filtered out by biophysical filters and how management practices introduced a range of exotic species and their trait values into the local species pool. Our results showed that, at local scales and depending on prevailing environmental and management practices, LUI does not necessarily result in communities with more acquisitive trait values or with less functional variation. Instead of the widely expected negative impacts of LUI on plant diversity, we found varying responses of functional variation, with possible repercussions on many ecosystem services. These findings provide a background for actively mitigating negative effects of LUI while meeting the needs of local communities that rely mainly on provisioning ecosystem services for their livelihoods.

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“…Lienin and Kleyer, 2011;Cavender-Bares and Reich, 2012), indicate the role of multiple processes and the signature of spatial scale on those processes. We found that environmental and forest use gradients operate hierarchically over subtropical premontane tree species influencing the distribution of demographic and morphological traits.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Finally, we computed permutation tests to evaluate significant relationships in matrix D. According to Dray and Legendre (2008), in order to reject the null hypothesis that there is no relationship between Q and R using fourth-corner, one must first check that there is no relationship between L and Q nor between L and R. Generally, RLQ and fourthcorner analyses are jointly used to analytically and graphically identify groups of species traits under certain environmental conditions (e.g. Lienin and Kleyer, 2011;Raevel et al, 2012). We performed all analyses using R statistical software (R Development Core Team, 2013) using packages vegan (vegdist function), stats (cmdscale function) and ade-4 (dudi.pca, dudi.coa, rlq and fourthcorner functions).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Plots established in older secondary forests, frequently in hilly areas, are dominated by species with high maximum height, wind-dispersal, high wood density and low recruitment and growth rates. Forest use history allows understanding vegetation response along anthropic disturbance gradients, especially changes in species abundance and in the emerging functional traits within plant communities (Lienin and Kleyer, 2011;Raevel et al, 2012). The correlation between years without logging and the mean slope across the 20 1-ha plots (r ¼ 0.39, P ¼ 0.081) might suggest a pattern of lower pressure of forest use in hilly areas where selective logging involves the use of a more developed infrastructure.…”

Section: Distribution Of Functional Traits Across Environmental and Fmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Distribution of functional traits in subtropical trees across environmental and forest use gradients

2015

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Plant leaf economics and reproductive investment are responsive to gradients of land use intensity

Cited by 24 publications

References 61 publications

Ecosystem multifunctionality of coastal marshes is determined by key plant traits

Ecosystem multifunctionality of coastal marshes is determined by key plant traits

Land‐use intensification effects on functional properties in tropical plant communities

Distribution of functional traits in subtropical trees across environmental and forest use gradients

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