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Title: | Climatic and soil factors explain the two-dimensional spectrum of global plant trait variation | Authors: | Joswig, Julia S. Wirth, Christian Schuman, Meredith C. Kattge, Jens Reu, Bjorn Wright, Ian J. Sippel, Sebastian D. Rueger, Nadja Richter, Ronny Schaepman, Michael E. van Bodegom, Peter M. Cornelissen, J. H. C. Diaz, Sandra Hattingh, Wesley N. Kramer, Koen Lens, Frederic Niinemets, Ulo Reich, Peter B. Reichstein, Markus Roemermann, Christine Schrodt, Franziska Anand, Madhur Bahn, Michael Byun, Chaeho Campetella, Giandiego Cerabolini, Bruno E. L. Craine, Joseph M. Gonzalez-Melo, Andres Gutierrez, Alvaro G. He , Tianhua Higuchi, Pedro Jactel, Herve Kraft, Nathan J. B. Minden, Vanessa Onipchenko, Vladimir Penuelas, Josep Pillar, Valerio D. Sosinski, Enio SOUDZILOVSKAIA, Nadia Weiher, Evan Mahecha, Miguel D. |
Issue Date: | 2022 | Publisher: | NATURE PORTFOLIO | Source: | Nature ecology & evolution, 6(1) , p. 36-51 | Abstract: | The authors investigate the broad-scale climatological and soil properties that co-vary with major axes of plant functional traits. They find that variation in plant size is attributed to latitudinal gradients in water or energy limitation, while variation in leaf economics traits is attributed to both climate and soil fertility including their interaction. Plant functional traits can predict community assembly and ecosystem functioning and are thus widely used in global models of vegetation dynamics and land-climate feedbacks. Still, we lack a global understanding of how land and climate affect plant traits. A previous global analysis of six traits observed two main axes of variation: (1) size variation at the organ and plant level and (2) leaf economics balancing leaf persistence against plant growth potential. The orthogonality of these two axes suggests they are differently influenced by environmental drivers. We find that these axes persist in a global dataset of 17 traits across more than 20,000 species. We find a dominant joint effect of climate and soil on trait variation. Additional independent climate effects are also observed across most traits, whereas independent soil effects are almost exclusively observed for economics traits. Variation in size traits correlates well with a latitudinal gradient related to water or energy limitation. In contrast, variation in economics traits is better explained by interactions of climate with soil fertility. These findings have the potential to improve our understanding of biodiversity patterns and our predictions of climate change impacts on biogeochemical cycles. | Notes: | Joswig, JS (corresponding author), Max Planck Inst Biogeochem, Jena, Germany.; Joswig, JS (corresponding author), Univ Zurich, Dept Geog, Remote Sensing Labs, Zurich, Switzerland. juliajoswigjj@gmail.com |
Document URI: | http://hdl.handle.net/1942/36507 | ISSN: | 2397-334X | e-ISSN: | 2397-334X | DOI: | 10.1038/s41559-021-01616-8 | ISI #: | WOS:000733709100011 | Rights: | The Author(s) 2021 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Atribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons. org/licenses/by/4.0/. | Category: | A1 | Type: | Journal Contribution | Validations: | ecoom 2022 |
Appears in Collections: | Research publications |
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