Environmental filtering rather than phylogeny determines plant leaf size in three floristically distinctive plateaus

作者：Tingting Ren, Nianpeng He, Zhaogang Liu, Mingxu Li, Jiahui Zhang, Ang Li, Cunzheng Wei, Xiao‐Tao Lü, Xingguo Han · 发表于：Ecological Indicators · 年份：2021 · DOI：10.1016/j.ecolind.2021.108049 · 被引用次数：29 · 研究领域：Ecology and Vegetation Dynamics Studies、Remote Sensing in Agriculture、Plant and animal studies

Leaf is essential for plant growth and development; however, the relative importance of environmental filtering and phylogeny in determining leaf size across different spatial scales in grassland ecosystems remains poorly explored. We used transect methodology to explore the spatial variation in leaf size and its underlying mechanisms in grasslands along three topographically and floristically distinctive plateaus in northern China. We measured leaf size of a total of 1192 grassland species in the Tibetan Plateau (TP, temperature limited), Loess Plateau (LP, soil-nutrient limited), and Mongolia Plateau (MP, precipitation limited) along three transects encompassing meadow, typical, and desert steppes. Leaf size ranged from 0.01 to 258.16 cm2, with an average of 5.54 cm2. The smallest leaves were measured in the TP. At the vegetation association level, the largest leaves were present in the meadow steppe, followed by those in typical and desert steppes, irrespective of the plateau. Unexpectedly, phylogeny had a negligible effect on the spatial variation in leaf size in the grasslands. Leaf size was positively correlated with growing-season temperature and precipitation but negatively correlated with ultraviolet (UV) radiation, suggesting that environmental filtering plays a more important role in affecting leaf size than phylogeny. Furthermore, leaf size in the TP and MP was mainly affected by precipitation and UV radiation, respectively, whereas that in the LP was affected by ...