Journal Article

Evidence of the 'Plant Economics Spectrum' in a Subarctic Flora

Cornelissen, Johannes H. C., Aerts, Rien, van Logtestijn, Richard S. P., Freschet, Grégoire T.

2010

Overview

1. A fundamental trade-off among vascular plants between traits inferring rapid resource acquisition and those leading to conservation of resources has now been accepted broadly, but is based on empirical data with a strong bias towards leaf traits. Here, we test whether interspecific variation in traits of different plant organs obeys this same trade-off and whether within-plant trade-offs are consistent between organs. 2. Thereto, we measured suites of the same chemical and structural traits from the main vegetative organs for a species set representing aquatic, riparian and terrestrial environments including the main vascular higher taxa and growth forms of a subarctic flora. The traits were chosen to have consistent relevance for plant defence and growth across organs and environments: carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, lignin, dry matter content, pH. 3. Our analysis shows several new trait correlations across leaves, stems and roots and a striking pattern of whole-plant integrative resource economy, leading to tight correspondence between the local leaf economics spectrum and the root (r = 0.64), stem (r = 0.78) and whole-plant (r = 0.93) economics spectra. 4. Synthesis. Our findings strongly suggest that plant resource economics is consistent across species' organs in a subarctic flora. We provide thus the first evidence for a 'plant economics spectrum' closely related to the local subarctic 'leaf economics spectrum'. Extending that concept to other biomes is, however, necessary before any generalization might be made. In a world facing rapid vegetation change, these results nevertheless bear considerable prospects of predicting below-ground plant functions from the above-ground components alone.

• Publisher: Blackwell Publishing,Blackwell Publishing Ltd,Blackwell
• Subject: Animal and plant ecology / Animal, plant and microbial ecology / Aquatic ecosystems / Biological and medical sciences / carbon / Dry matter / dry matter content / Ecological economics / Economics / Ecophysiology / Ecosystems / Flora / Flowers & plants / Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology / General aspects / growth form / Human ecology / interspecific variation / Leaves / lignin / nitrogen / nutrient content / phosphorus / phylogeny / Plant ecology / plant organs / Plant resources / Plant roots / plant trait / Plants / prediction / Principal components analysis / Resource conservation / Riparian buffers / roots / Species / specific leaf area / Stems / Synecology / terrestrial and aquatic environments / Terrestrial ecosystems / Terrestrial environments / Tradeoff analysis / trade‐off / vascular plants / vegetation / vegetative organs