Patterns and ecological determinants of woody plant height in eastern Eurasia and its relation to primary productivity

Abstract Aims Plant height is a key functional trait related to aboveground biomass, leaf photosynthesis and plant fitness. However, large-scale geographical patterns in community-average plant height (CAPH) of woody species and drivers of these patterns across different life forms remain hotly debated. Moreover, whether CAPH could be used as a predictor of ecosystem primary productivity is unknown. Methods We compiled mature height and distributions of 11 422 woody species in eastern Eurasia, and estimated geographic patterns in CAPH for different taxonomic groups and life forms. Then we evaluated the effects of environmental (including current climate and historical climate change since the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM)) and evolutionary factors on CAPH. Lastly, we compared the predictive power of CAPH on primary productivity with that of LiDAR-derived canopy-height data from a global survey. Important Findings Geographic patterns of CAPH and their drivers differed among taxonomic groups and life forms. The strongest predictor for CAPH of all woody species combined, angiosperms, all dicots and deciduous dicots was actual evapotranspiration, while temperature was the strongest predictor for CAPH of monocots and tree, shrub and evergreen dicots, and water availability for gymnosperms. Historical climate change since the LGM had only weak effects on CAPH. No phylogenetic signal was detected in family-wise average height, which was also unrelated to the tested environmental factors. Finally, we found a strong correlation between CAPH and ecosystem primary productivity. Primary productivity showed a weaker relationship with CAPH of the tallest species within a grid cell and no relationship with LiDAR-derived canopy height reported in the global survey. Our findings suggest that current climate rather than historical climate change and evolutionary history determine the geographical patterns in CAPH. However, the relative effects of climatic factors representing environmental energy and water availability on spatial variations of CAPH vary among plant life forms. Moreover, our results also suggest that CAPH can be used as a good predictor of ecosystem primary productivity.

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Effects of Climate, Plant Height, and Evolutionary Age on Geographical Patterns of Fruit Type

Frontiers in Plant Science ◽

10.3389/fpls.2021.604272 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 12 ◽

Author(s):

Tong Lyu ◽

Yunyun Wang ◽

Ao Luo ◽

Yaoqi Li ◽

Shijia Peng ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Plant Height ◽

Primary Productivity ◽

Large Scale ◽

Grid Cell ◽

Relative Importance ◽

Herbaceous Species ◽

Fruit Type ◽

Geographical Patterns ◽

Geographical Variations ◽

Type Composition

Fruit type is a key reproductive trait associated with plant evolution and adaptation. However, large-scale geographical patterns in fruit type composition and the mechanisms driving these patterns remain to be established. Contemporary environment, plant functional traits and evolutionary age may all influence fruit type composition, while their relative importance remains unclear. Here, using data on fruit types, plant height and distributions of 28,222 (∼ 90.1%) angiosperm species in China, we analyzed the geographical patterns in the proportion of fleshy-fruited species for all angiosperms, trees, shrubs, and herbaceous species separately, and compared the relative effects of contemporary climate, ecosystem primary productivity, plant height, and evolutionary age on these patterns. We found that the proportion of fleshy-fruited species per grid cell for all species and different growth forms all showed significant latitudinal patterns, being the highest in southeastern China. Mean plant height per grid cell and actual evapotranspiration (AET) representing ecosystem primary productivity were the strongest drivers of geographical variations in the proportion of fleshy-fruited species, but their relative importance varied between growth forms. From herbaceous species to shrubs and trees, the relative effects of mean plant height decreased. Mean genus age had significant yet consistently weaker effects on proportion of fleshy-fruited species than mean plant height and AET, and environmental temperature and precipitation contributed to those of only trees and shrubs. These results suggest that biotic and environmental factors and evolutionary age of floras jointly shape the pattern in proportion of fleshy-fruited species, and improve our understanding of the mechanisms underlying geographical variations in fruit type composition. Our study also demonstrates the need of integrating multiple biotic and abiotic factors to fully understand the drivers of large-scale patterns of plant reproductive traits.

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Hydraulic traits are coordinated with maximum plant height at the global scale

Science Advances ◽

10.1126/sciadv.aav1332 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 5 (2) ◽

pp. eaav1332 ◽

Cited By ~ 26

Author(s):

Hui Liu ◽

Sean M. Gleason ◽

Guangyou Hao ◽

Lei Hua ◽

Pengcheng He ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Plant Height ◽

Hydraulic Resistance ◽

Water Availability ◽

Woody Species ◽

Global Scale ◽

Hydraulic Efficiency ◽

Trade Off ◽

Species Sorting ◽

Hydraulic Safety ◽

The Relationship

Water must be transported long distances in tall plants, resulting in increasing hydraulic resistance, which may place limitations on the maximum plant height (Hmax) in a given habitat. However, the coordination of hydraulic traits with Hmax and habitat aridity remains poorly understood. To explore whether Hmax modifies the trade-off between hydraulic efficiency and safety or how water availability might influence the relationship between Hmax and other hydraulic traits, we compiled a dataset including Hmax and 11 hydraulic traits for 1281 woody species from 369 sites worldwide. We found that taller species from wet habitats exhibited greater xylem efficiency and lower hydraulic safety, wider conduits, lower conduit density, and lower sapwood density, which were all associated with habitat water availability. Plant height and hydraulic functioning appear to represent a single, coordinated axis of variation, aligned primarily with water availability, thus suggesting an important role for this axis in species sorting processes.

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Faculty Opinions recommendation of Isolation by instability: Historical climate change shapes population structure and genomic divergence of treefrogs in the Neotropical Cerrado savanna.

Faculty Opinions – Post-Publication Peer Review of the Biomedical Literature ◽

10.3410/f.735073996.793563746 ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Ian Wang

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Population Structure ◽

Historical Climate ◽

Cerrado Savanna ◽

Genomic Divergence

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Simulating plant water availability in dry lands under climate change: A generic model of two soil layers

Water Resources Research ◽

10.1029/2007wr006589 ◽

2009 ◽

Vol 45 (1) ◽

Cited By ~ 31

Author(s):

Britta Tietjen ◽

Erwin Zehe ◽

Florian Jeltsch

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Water Availability ◽

Generic Model ◽

Plant Water ◽

Soil Layers ◽

Dry Lands

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Characterizing Growing Season Length of Subtropical Coniferous Forests with a Phenological Model

Forests ◽

10.3390/f12010095 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 12 (1) ◽

pp. 95

Author(s):

Yuan Gong ◽

Christina L. Staudhammer ◽

Susanne Wiesner ◽

Gregory Starr ◽

Yinlong Zhang

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Soil Water ◽

Prescribed Fire ◽

Water Availability ◽

Longleaf Pine ◽

Growing Season ◽

Soil Water Availability ◽

Future Climate Change ◽

Short Term ◽

Phenological Model

Understanding plant phenological change is of great concern in the context of global climate change. Phenological models can aid in understanding and predicting growing season changes and can be parameterized with gross primary production (GPP) estimated using the eddy covariance (EC) technique. This study used nine years of EC-derived GPP data from three mature subtropical longleaf pine forests in the southeastern United States with differing soil water holding capacity in combination with site-specific micrometeorological data to parameterize a photosynthesis-based phenological model. We evaluated how weather conditions and prescribed fire led to variation in the ecosystem phenological processes. The results suggest that soil water availability had an effect on phenology, and greater soil water availability was associated with a longer growing season (LOS). We also observed that prescribed fire, a common forest management activity in the region, had a limited impact on phenological processes. Dormant season fire had no significant effect on phenological processes by site, but we observed differences in the start of the growing season (SOS) between fire and non-fire years. Fire delayed SOS by 10 d ± 5 d (SE), and this effect was greater with higher soil water availability, extending SOS by 18 d on average. Fire was also associated with increased sensitivity of spring phenology to radiation and air temperature. We found that interannual climate change and periodic weather anomalies (flood, short-term drought, and long-term drought), controlled annual ecosystem phenological processes more than prescribed fire. When water availability increased following short-term summer drought, the growing season was extended. With future climate change, subtropical areas of the Southeastern US are expected to experience more frequent short-term droughts, which could shorten the region’s growing season and lead to a reduction in the longleaf pine ecosystem’s carbon sequestration capacity.

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Driving mechanisms of gross primary productivity geographical patterns for Qinghai–Tibet Plateau lake systems

The Science of The Total Environment ◽

10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.148286 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 148286

Author(s):

Junjie Jia ◽

Yafeng Wang ◽

Yao Lu ◽

Kun Sun ◽

Sidan Lyn ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Primary Productivity ◽

Gross Primary Productivity ◽

Tibet Plateau ◽

Geographical Patterns ◽

Driving Mechanisms ◽

Plateau Lake ◽

Lake Systems ◽

Qinghai Tibet Plateau

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High-Resolution Climate Change Impact Analysis on Expected Future Water Availability in the Upper Jordan Catchment and the Middle East

Journal of Hydrometeorology ◽

10.1175/jhm-d-13-0153.1 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 15 (4) ◽

pp. 1517-1531 ◽

Cited By ~ 15

Author(s):

Gerhard Smiatek ◽

Harald Kunstmann ◽

Andreas Heckl

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

High Resolution ◽

Water Availability ◽

Impact Analysis ◽

River Flow ◽

Climate Model ◽

Mesoscale Model ◽

Global Climate Model ◽

Full Range ◽

The Impact

Abstract The impact of climate change on the future water availability of the upper Jordan River (UJR) and its tributaries Dan, Snir, and Hermon located in the eastern Mediterranean is evaluated by a highly resolved distributed approach with the fifth-generation Pennsylvania State University–NCAR Mesoscale Model (MM5) run at 18.6- and 6.2-km resolution offline coupled with the Water Flow and Balance Simulation Model (WaSiM). The MM5 was driven with NCEP reanalysis for 1971–2000 and with Hadley Centre Coupled Model, version 3 (HadCM3), GCM forcings for 1971–2099. Because only one regional–global climate model combination was applied, the results may not give the full range of possible future projections. To describe the Dan spring behavior, the hydrological model was extended by a bypass approach to allow the fast discharge components of the Snir to enter the Dan catchment. Simulation results for the period 1976–2000 reveal that the coupled system was able to reproduce the observed discharge rates in the partially karstic complex terrain to a reasonable extent with the high-resolution 6.2-km meteorological input only. The performed future climate simulations show steadily rising temperatures with 2.2 K above the 1976–2000 mean for the period 2031–60 and 3.5 K for the period 2070–99. Precipitation trends are insignificant until the middle of the century, although a decrease of approximately 12% is simulated. For the end of the century, a reduction in rainfall ranging between 10% and 35% can be expected. Discharge in the UJR is simulated to decrease by 12% until 2060 and by 26% until 2099, both related to the 1976–2000 mean. The discharge decrease is associated with a lower number of high river flow years.

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