Leaf Elementomes Reveal Close Links With Leaf Water‐Use Strategies Across Diverse Forest Ecosystems: Insights From Trait Coordination and Reflectance Spectroscopy

作者：Nan Yang, Fengqi Wu, Lawren Sack, José Ignacio Querejeta, Lucas A. Cernusak, Tingting Dong, Weiying Xu, Philip A. Townsend, Matteo Detto, Josep Peñuelas, Xin Song, Xin Wang, Kristine Y. Crous, Xiao Ying Gong, Julien Lamour, Rossella Guerrieri, Nicholas G. Smith, Lingli Liu, Jin Wu, Zhengbing Yan · 发表于：Plant Cell & Environment · 年份：2025 · DOI：10.1111/pce.70323 · 被引用次数：1 · 研究领域：Plant Water Relations and Carbon Dynamics、Remote Sensing in Agriculture、Soil Carbon and Nitrogen Dynamics

ABSTRACT Leaf intrinsic water use efficiency (iWUE) quantifies the trade‐off between carbon assimilation and water loss in plants, and is constrained by leaf traits such as maximum carboxylation capacity ( V c,max ) and stomatal conductance. Yet, the potential links of iWUE with leaf elementomes across different forest types remain unclear. Here, we analyzed iWUE (estimated by leaf carbon isotopes) variability and its associations with V c,max , stomatal conductance (estimated by 18 O enrichment in leaf dry matter above source water, Δ 18 O), and leaf elementomes across 82 tree species from temperate, subtropical and tropical forests, and evaluated the effectiveness of leaf reflectance spectroscopy as an indicator of iWUE variability and trait–iWUE associations. Across species, V c,max , Δ 18 O, leaf mass per area (LMA) and leaf iron, nitrogen, sodium and manganese concentrations were the traits most strongly associated with cross‐site iWUE variability. Furthermore, climatic factors (mean annual precipitation, mean annual temperature and climate moisture index) shaped trait–iWUE covariation by negatively linking leaf elements and positively with LMA, which affected iWUE more directly than indirectly via V c,max and Δ 18 O. Leaf reflectance spectroscopy accurately predicted iWUE ( R 2 = 0.83), and the trait–iWUE relationships derived from spectral modelling were consistent with those obtained through field measurements. These findings reveal strong linkages between the leaf el...