Characteristic and Adaptive Strategy in Leaf Functional Traits of Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) Staple Bamboo Species

作者：Liu Xiong, Yilin Zhou, Xingcheng Zou, Weiyu Zhu, Renping Wan, Zepeng Liang, Junxi Hu, Liehua Tie, Xinglei Cui, Yuanbin Zhang, Shixing Zhou, Jordi Sardans, Congde Huang, Josep Peñuelas · 发表于：Forests · 年份：2025 · DOI：10.3390/f16060954 · 被引用次数：1 · 研究领域：Bamboo properties and applications、Plant Taxonomy and Phylogenetics、Leaf Properties and Growth Measurement

Leaf functional traits are important indicators that reveal plant adaptation and response to environmental changes. Characteristics and adaptive strategies of leaf functional traits of staple bamboo species (SBSs) for the giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) remain unclear, which limits conservation management of the giant panda and its habitat. Here, this study investigated 10 SBSs in 15 nature reserves across 36 counties, measured eight leaf functional traits, analyzed trait characteristics, variation, and drivers of variation, and examined trait-based strategies and strategy–environmental constraint relationships. Our results indicate that: coefficients of variation in leaf functional traits spanned from 9.58% to 79.16%, and significant differences were found among SBSs for leaf functional traits except chlorophyll concentration. The linear mixed-effects models revealed that the taxonomic factors explained 20.16 to 77.94% of variation, and environmental factors explained 17.03 to 29.12%. Leaf functional traits exhibited distinct environmental associations, primarily driven by geographic location, topography, and soil phosphorus availability. Hierarchical clustering and principal component analysis revealed 10 SBS clustered into two groups, corresponding to conservative and acquisitive resource-use strategies. Canonical correspondence analysis revealed that SBSs with conservative strategies were distributed in warm and moist habitats, and SBSs with acquisition strategies we...