The influencing factors of leaf functional traits variation of Pinus densiflora Sieb. et Zucc.

Abstract

Trait-based approaches have emerged as promising strategies for understanding plant adaptation mechanisms to the changing environment. At present, there are a large number of studies on the relationship between plant leaf functional traits and environment, but these studies mostly use the average value of traits instead of species, ignoring the intraspecific changes of traits. Pinus densiflora Sieb. et Zucc. is not only an urban greening tree species, but also an important afforestation tree species, which plays an important role in China's terrestrial ecosystem. In this study, the leaf nitrogen content (LN), the leaf phosphorus content (LP), nitrogen phosphorus ratio (N/P), leaf area (LA) and specific leaf area (SLA) of 16 sites (160 records) distributed in Chinese P. densiflora were measured. (1) The results showed that LN increased with the increase of mean annual precipitation (MAP) and decreased with the increase of soil organic matter (SOM). LP and SLA decreased with the increase of mean annual temperature (MAT) and increased with the increase of AN (soil available phosphorus) and AP (soil available phosphorus). N/P increased with the increase of MAT and MAP, and decreased with the increase of AN and AP. LA increased with the increase of MAT and MAP. (2) Relative importance analysis showed that MAP was the most important driver of LN and LA. The main driving factors of LP is MAT, the main driving factors of N/P is SOM, and the main influencing factors of SLA is AP. Overall, climate was the main driving factor for the variation of leaf functional traits. The variation law of leaf functional traits along environmental gradient strongly supported the temperature-plant physiological hypothesis. It enriches the understanding of leaf functional traits distribution pattern and its driving mechanism under environmental change.