Plant Phylogeny and Growth Form as Drivers of the Altitudinal Variation in Woody Leaf Vein Traits.

ABSTRACT: Variation in leaf veins along environmental gradients reflects an important adaptive strategy of plants to the external habitats, because of their crucial roles in maintaining leaf water status and photosynthetic capacity. However, most studies concentrate on a few species and their vein variation across horizontal spatial scale, we know little about how vein traits shift along the vertical scale, e.g., elevational gradient along a mountain, and how such patterns are shaped by plant types and environmental factors. Here, we aimed to investigate the variation in leaf vein traits (i.e., vein density, VD; vein thickness, VT; and vein volume per unit leaf area, VV) of 93 woody species distributed along an elevational gradient (1,374-3,375 m) in a temperate mountain in China. Our results showed

SUBMITTER: Wang R 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7012802 | biostudies-literature | 2019

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature