Leaf traits indicate survival strategies among 42 dominant plant species in a dry, sandy habitat, China

Abstract

The objective of this paper was to assess the congruency of leaf traits and soil characteristics and to analyze the survival strategies of different plant functional types in response to drought and nutrient-poor environments in the southeastern Ke’erqin Sandy Lands in China. Six leaf traits—leaf thickness (TH), density (DN), specific leaf area (SLA), leaf dry weight to fresh weight ratio(DW/FW), leaf N concentration (N_mass), and N resorption efficiency (NRE_mass)—of 42 plant species were investigated at four sites. The correlations between leaf traits and soil characteristics—organic C (OC), total N (TN), total P (TP), and soil moisture (SM)—were examined. We found that the six leaf traits across all the 42 species showed large variations and that DW/FW was negatively correlated with OC, TN, TP, and SM (P < 0.05), while other leaf traits showed no significant correlations with soil characteristics. To find the dissimilarity to accommodate environment, a hierarchical agglomerative clustering analysis was made of all the species. All the species clustered into three groups except the Scutellaria baicalensis. Species of group III might be most tolerant of an arid environment, and species of group II might avoid nutrient stress in the nutrient-poor environment, while group I was somewhat intermediate. Therefore, species from the different groups may be selected for use in vegetation restoration of different sites based on soil moisture and nutrient conditions.

Keywords

leaf thickness / leaf density / specific leaf area / leaf dry matter content / leaf N concentration / N resorption efficiency