Publication Date:
2013-03-30
Description:
The leaf economics spectrum (LES) describes multivariate correlations that constrain leaf traits of plant species primarily to a single axis of variation if data are normalized by leaf mass. We show that these traits are approximately distributed proportional to leaf area instead of mass, as expected for a light- and carbon dioxide-collecting organ. Much of the structure in the mass-normalized LES results from normalizing area-proportional traits by mass. Mass normalization induces strong correlations among area-proportional traits because of large variation among species in leaf mass per area (LMA). The high LMA variance likely reflects its functional relationship with leaf life span. A LES that is independent of mass- or area-normalization and LMA reveals physiological relationships that are inconsistent with those in global vegetation models designed to address climate change.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Osnas, Jeanne L D -- Lichstein, Jeremy W -- Reich, Peter B -- Pacala, Stephen W -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2013 May 10;340(6133):741-4. doi: 10.1126/science.1231574. Epub 2013 Mar 28.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08542, USA. jldosnas@gmail.com〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23539179" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
Carbon Dioxide/metabolism
;
Light
;
Organ Size
;
Plant Leaves/*anatomy & histology/metabolism/radiation effects
;
Species Specificity
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Computer Science
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
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