Monday, December 16, 2013

Trees in colder environments are less tolerant of shade


Nice paper from Chris Lusk et al. They grew 17 NZ tree species in the glasshouse. Species that grew in places with colder winters had narrower vessels and lower conductance of water.

The mechanism that makes cold-tolerant species less tolerant species was unclear though.

Whether there is a direct tradeoff between cold-tolerance and shade-tolerance, or an indirect set of relationships is still to be worked out.

Lusk, C. H., T. Kaneko, E. Grierson, M. Clearwater, and F. Gilliam. 2013. Correlates of tree species sorting along a temperature gradient in New Zealand rain forests: seedling functional traits, growth and shade tolerance. Journal of Ecology 101:1531-1541.

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