Recently, the reporter learned from South China National Botanical Garden that researchers at the Ecological Research Center have made new progress in the research on the impact of functional traits on the life history of plants in evergreen broad-leaved forests in the South subtropical monsoon by combining relevant data from 53 dominant tree species between 2005 and 2020.
Functional traits are the core plant attributes of plants to respond to environmental changes and adapt to environmental changes. They are an important research method for predicting ecosystem responses and adapting to global climate change. Through plant functional traits , exploring species growth strategies and survival mechanisms and their responses and adaptations to global changes is a hot topic in forest ecology.
It is understood that the life history of plants includes plant growth, death and replenishment, which closely affects species fitness, forest productivity, species diversity and forest carbon sequestration. As the inherent connections of plant life history, and the correlation between functional traits and plant life history remains largely unknown, it is quite challenging to predict the structure and dynamics of forest communities under global change.
Recently, new progress has been made in the study of the impact of functional traits on the life history of evergreen broad-leaved forests in the South subtropical monsoon. He Pengcheng, a postdoctoral fellow at the Ecological Research Center of the South China Botanical Garden of Chinese Academy of Sciences, based on the 20 hectares of evergreen broadleaf forest in the south subtropical monsoon, combined with the growth rate, mortality and replenishment rate data of 53 dominant tree species from 2005 to 2020, and also measured functional traits closely related to plant photosynthesis, nutrient elements, hydraulics and drought resistance. It was found that the growth rate of trees was not related to mortality and replenishment rate; the branch water conductivity explained 27% of the change in the growth rate of trees, while the wood density was significantly negatively correlated with the growth rate.
Researchers draw relevant conclusions by combining relevant data from 53 dominant tree species between 2005 and 2020.
In addition, researchers also found that the longer the leaf life, the lower the mortality rate of plants, the higher the carbon acquisition rate, nutrient content and water conductivity, the faster the growth rate and replenishment rate of tree species with fast resource acquisition.
study shows that the inherent connections in the life history of subtropical monsoon forests are weak, and there is no trade-off relationship between tree growth and death; the change in plant replenishment rate is consistent with changes in leaf economics and plant hydraulic traits. Relevant research results have been published online in mainstream international ecology journals recently.
text and pictures/Guangzhou Daily·Xinhua City Reporter: Huang Lan Correspondent: Zhou Fei, He Pengcheng Guangzhou Daily·Xinhua City Editor: Lin Weilin
