Leaf-level photosynthetic capacity dynamics in relation to soil and foliar nutrients along forest–savanna boundaries in Ghana and Brazil

Forest-savanna boundaries extend across large parts of the tropics but the variability of photosynthetic capacity in relation to soil and foliar nutrients across these transition zones is poorly understood. For this reason, we compared photosynthetic capacity (maximum rate of carboxylation of Rubisco at 25 C° (Vcmax25), leaf mass, nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P) and potassium (K) per unit leaf area (LMA, Narea, Parea and Karea, respectively), in relation to respective soil nutrients from 89 species at seven sites along forest-savanna ecotones in Ghana and Brazil. Contrary to our expectations, edaphic conditions were not reflected in foliar nutrient concentrations but LMA was slightly higher in lower fertility soils. Overall, each vegetation type within the ecotones demonstrated idiosyncratic and generally weak relationships between Vcmax25 and Narea, Parea and Karea. Species varied significantly in their Vcmax25 ↔ Narea relationship due to reduced investment of total Narea in photosynthetic machinery with increasing LMA. We suggest that studied species in the forest-savanna ecotones do not maximize Vcmax25 per given total Narea due to adaptation to intermittent water availability. Our findings have implications for global modeling of Vcmax25 and forest-savanna ecotone productivity.

[1]  M. Bueno,et al.  The environmental triangle of the Cerrado Domain: Ecological factors driving shifts in tree species composition between forests and savannas , 2018 .

[2]  B. Jákli,et al.  Functioning of potassium and magnesium in photosynthesis, photosynthate translocation and photoprotection. , 2018, Physiologia plantarum.

[3]  S. Schubert,et al.  Water logging may inhibit plant growth primarily by nutrient deficiency rather than nutrient toxicity , 2018 .

[4]  Yadvinder Malhi,et al.  Forest biomass, productivity and carbon cycling along a rainfall gradient in West Africa , 2018, Global change biology.

[5]  Per B. Brockhoff,et al.  lmerTest Package: Tests in Linear Mixed Effects Models , 2017 .

[6]  Ivan C. Haworth,et al.  Informing models through empirical relationships between foliar phosphorus, nitrogen and photosynthesis across diverse woody species in tropical forests of Panama. , 2017, The New phytologist.

[7]  F. Woodward,et al.  The impact of alternative trait-scaling hypotheses for the maximum photosynthetic carboxylation rate (Vcmax ) on global gross primary production. , 2017, The New phytologist.

[8]  B. Enquist,et al.  Trait variation and integration across scales: is the leaf economic spectrum present at local scales? , 2017 .

[9]  Roberta E. Martin,et al.  Solar radiation and functional traits explain the decline of forest primary productivity along a tropical elevation gradient. , 2017, Ecology letters.

[10]  Roberta E. Martin,et al.  Leaf-level photosynthetic capacity in lowland Amazonian and high-elevation Andean tropical moist forests of Peru. , 2017, The New phytologist.

[11]  L. Sack,et al.  The anatomical and compositional basis of leaf mass per area. , 2017, Ecology letters.

[12]  Christos Giannakopoulos,et al.  Predicting species dominance shifts across elevation gradients in mountain forests in Greece under a warmer and drier climate , 2017, Regional Environmental Change.

[13]  Rajen Dinesh Shah,et al.  Goodness‐of‐fit tests for high dimensional linear models , 2015, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society: Series B (Statistical Methodology).

[14]  Y. Malhi,et al.  Many shades of green: the dynamic tropical forest–savannah transition zones , 2016, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

[15]  Gregory P. Asner,et al.  Examining variation in the leaf mass per area of dominant species across two contrasting tropical gradients in light of community assembly , 2016, Ecology and evolution.

[16]  B. Marimon,et al.  Survival and growth of native Tachigali vulgaris and exotic Eucalyptus urophylla × Eucalyptus grandis trees in degraded soils with biochar amendment in southern Amazonia , 2016 .

[17]  P. Meir,et al.  A test of the 'one-point method' for estimating maximum carboxylation capacity from field-measured, light-saturated photosynthesis. , 2016, The New phytologist.

[18]  Anabelle W. Cardoso,et al.  Winners and losers: tropical forest tree seedling survival across a West African forest–savanna transition , 2016, Ecology and evolution.

[19]  N. Buchmann,et al.  Legumes are different: Leaf nitrogen, photosynthesis, and water use efficiency , 2016, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[20]  B. Marimon,et al.  VEGETATION SUCCESSION IN THE CERRADO–AMAZONIAN FOREST TRANSITION ZONE OF MATO GROSSO STATE, BRAZIL , 2016 .

[21]  Russell V. Lenth,et al.  Least-Squares Means: The R Package lsmeans , 2016 .

[22]  R. Guy,et al.  Leaf mass per area predicts palisade structural properties linked to mesophyll conductance in balsam poplar (Populus balsamifera L.) , 2016 .

[23]  Meng Wang,et al.  A novel approach for modelling vegetation distributions and analysing vegetation sensitivity through trait-climate relationships in China , 2016, Scientific Reports.

[24]  B. Forsberg,et al.  Interactions Between Biosphere, Atmosphere and Human Land Use in the Amazon Basin , 2016, Ecological Studies.

[25]  C. Quesada,et al.  Soil–Vegetation Interactions in Amazonia , 2016 .

[26]  Ashehad A. Ali,et al.  Global-scale environmental control of plant photosynthetic capacity. , 2015, Ecological applications : a publication of the Ecological Society of America.

[27]  O. Phillips,et al.  Edaphic, structural and physiological contrasts across Amazon Basin forest-savanna ecotones suggest a role for potassium as a key modulator of tropical woody vegetation structure and function , 2015 .

[28]  S. Lewis,et al.  Biome-specific effects of nitrogen and phosphorus on the photosynthetic characteristics of trees at a forest-savanna boundary in Cameroon , 2015, Oecologia.

[29]  Xin‐rong Li,et al.  Nutrient levels within leaves, stems, and roots of the xeric species Reaumuria soongorica in relation to geographical, climatic, and soil conditions , 2015, Ecology and evolution.

[30]  G. Wallin,et al.  Photosynthetic capacity of tropical montane tree species in relation to leaf nutrients, successional strategy and growth temperature , 2015, Oecologia.

[31]  G. Farquhar,et al.  Contrasting photosynthetic characteristics of forest vs. savanna species (Far North Queensland, Australia) , 2014 .

[32]  W. Kress,et al.  Wood nitrogen concentrations in tropical trees: phylogenetic patterns and ecological correlates. , 2014, The New phytologist.

[33]  I. Prentice,et al.  Reliable, robust and realistic: the three R's of next-generation land-surface modelling , 2014 .

[34]  Min Tang,et al.  Goodness of fit tests for linear mixed models , 2014, J. Multivar. Anal..

[35]  Stephen Sitch,et al.  Analysing Amazonian forest productivity using a new individual and trait-based model (TFS v.1) , 2014 .

[36]  D. Bates,et al.  Fitting Linear Mixed-Effects Models Using lme4 , 2014, 1406.5823.

[37]  C. Okereke,et al.  Comparative phytochemical and proximate analyses on Ceiba pentandra (L) Gaertn. and Bombax buonopozense (P) Beauv. , 2014 .

[38]  S. Shabala,et al.  Going beyond nutrition: regulation of potassium homoeostasis as a common denominator of plant adaptive responses to environment. , 2014, Journal of plant physiology.

[39]  L. Carvalheiro,et al.  Short-Term Effect of Nutrient Availability and Rainfall Distribution on Biomass Production and Leaf Nutrient Content of Savanna Tree Species , 2014, PloS one.

[40]  O. Phillips,et al.  Structural, physiognomic and above-ground biomass variation in savanna–forest transition zones on three continents – how different are co-occurring savanna and forest formations? , 2014 .

[41]  I. C. Prentice,et al.  Balancing the costs of carbon gain and water transport: testing a new theoretical framework for plant functional ecology. , 2014, Ecology letters.

[42]  L. Hedin,et al.  Nitrogen and phosphorus interact to control tropical symbiotic N2 fixation: a test in Inga punctata , 2013 .

[43]  M. Cianciaruso,et al.  Leaf habit does not predict leaf functional traits in cerrado woody species , 2013 .

[44]  G. Farquhar,et al.  Photosynthetically relevant foliar traits correlating better on a mass vs an area basis: of ecophysiological relevance or just a case of mathematical imperatives and statistical quicksand? , 2013, The New phytologist.

[45]  S. Pacala,et al.  Global Leaf Trait Relationships: Mass, Area, and the Leaf Economics Spectrum , 2013, Science.

[46]  Shiwei Guo,et al.  The Critical Role of Potassium in Plant Stress Response , 2013, International journal of molecular sciences.

[47]  Frank van Langevelde,et al.  Leaf adaptations of evergreen and deciduous trees of semi‐arid and humid savannas on three continents , 2013 .

[48]  O. Phillips,et al.  On the delineation of tropical vegetation types with an emphasis on forest/savanna transitions , 2013 .

[49]  Guy F. Midgley,et al.  Carbon dioxide and the uneasy interactions of trees and savannah grasses , 2012, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

[50]  S. Levin,et al.  The Global Extent and Determinants of Savanna and Forest as Alternative Biome States , 2011, Science.

[51]  O. Phillips,et al.  ForestPlots.net: a web application and research tool to manage and analyse tropical forest plot data , 2011 .

[52]  Patrick Meir,et al.  Photosynthetic parameters, dark respiration and leaf traits in the canopy of a Peruvian tropical montane cloud forest , 2011, Oecologia.

[53]  Xinnian Dong,et al.  A highway for war and peace: the secretory pathway in plant-microbe interactions. , 2011, Molecular plant.

[54]  Sanford Weisberg,et al.  An R Companion to Applied Regression , 2010 .

[55]  J. Cornelissen,et al.  Coordinated variation in leaf and root traits across multiple spatial scales in Chinese semi-arid and arid ecosystems. , 2010, The New phytologist.

[56]  J. Fromm.  Wood formation of trees in relation to potassium and calcium nutrition. , 2010, Tree physiology.

[57]  N. Hasselquist,et al.  Water relations of evergreen and drought-deciduous trees along a seasonally dry tropical forest chronosequence , 2010, Oecologia.

[58]  T. Feldpausch,et al.  Co-limitation of photosynthetic capacity by nitrogen and phosphorus in West Africa woodlands. , 2010, Plant, cell & environment.

[59]  W. Bond.  Do nutrient-poor soils inhibit development of forests? A nutrient stock analysis , 2010, Plant and Soil.

[60]  A. Arneth,et al.  Variations in chemical and physical properties of Amazon forest soils in relation to their genesis , 2010 .

[61]  Yadvinder Malhi,et al.  Basin-wide variations in foliar properties of Amazonian forest: phylogeny, soils and climate. , 2009 .

[62]  J. Sprent.  Legume Nodulation: A Global Perspective , 2009 .

[63]  L. Poorter,et al.  Causes and consequences of variation in leaf mass per area (LMA): a meta-analysis. , 2009, The New phytologist.

[64]  W. Knorr,et al.  Quantifying photosynthetic capacity and its relationship to leaf nitrogen content for global‐scale terrestrial biosphere models , 2009 .

[65]  A. Zuur,et al.  Mixed Effects Models and Extensions in Ecology with R , 2009 .

[66]  Nathan J B Kraft,et al.  Functional Traits and Niche-Based Tree Community Assembly in an Amazonian Forest , 2008, Science.

[67]  J. Ehleringer,et al.  Understanding the Influences of Spatial Patterns on N Availability Within the Brazilian Amazon Forest , 2008, Ecosystems.

[68]  M. Haridasan.  Nutritional adaptations of native plants of the cerrado biome in acid soils , 2008 .

[69]  E. Vieira‐Neto,et al.  Do herbivores exert top-down effects in Neotropical savannas? Estimates of biomass consumption by leaf-cutter ants , 2008 .

[70]  M. G. Ryan,et al.  Foliar and Ecosystem Respiration in an Old-growth Tropical Rain Forest , 2022 .

[71]  Hans-Hermann Gerdes,et al.  Functional Traits and Niche-Based Tree Community Assembly in an Amazonian Forest , 2008 .

[72]  T. Sharkey,et al.  Fitting photosynthetic carbon dioxide response curves for C(3) leaves. , 2007, Plant, cell & environment.

[73]  E. A. Mattos,et al.  Photosynthesis and carbon gain under contrasting light levels in seedlings of a pioneer and a climax tree from a Brazilian Semideciduous Tropical Forest , 2007 .

[74]  B. Rudolf,et al.  World Map of the Köppen-Geiger climate classification updated , 2006 .

[75]  J. Camarero,et al.  Crown architecture and leaf habit are associated with intrinsically different light-harvesting efficiencies in Quercus seedlings from contrasting environments , 2006 .

[76]  Samuel Alleaume,et al.  Sensitivity of African biomes to changes in the precipitation regime , 2006 .

[77]  Juan F. Silva,et al.  Spatial heterogeneity, land use and conservation in the cerrado region of Brazil , 2006 .

[78]  Ranz,et al.  World Map of the Köppen-Geiger climate classification updated — Source link , 2006 .

[79]  D. Bonal,et al.  Leaf photosynthetic traits of 14 tropical rain forest species in relation to leaf nitrogen concentration and shade tolerance. , 2005, Tree Physiology.

[80]  Yuncai Hu,et al.  Drought and salinity: A comparison of their effects on mineral nutrition of plants , 2005 .

[81]  L. Wiersum.  Uptake of nitrogen and phosphorus in relation to soil structure and nutrient mobility , 1962, Plant and Soil.

[82]  K. Hikosaka,et al.  Photosynthesis or persistence: nitrogen allocation in leaves of evergreen and deciduous Quercus species , 2004 .

[83]  W. Parton,et al.  Progressive Nitrogen Limitation of Ecosystem Responses to Rising Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide , 2004 .

[84]  Sean C. Thomas,et al.  The worldwide leaf economics spectrum , 2004, Nature.

[85]  J. Berry,et al.  A biochemical model of photosynthetic CO2 assimilation in leaves of C3 species , 1980, Planta.

[86]  L. Gautier,et al.  The forest-savanna transition in West Africa. , 2004 .

[87]  F. Bongers,et al.  Biodiversity of West African forests: an ecological atlas of woody plant species. , 2004 .

[88]  C. Critchley,et al.  Photosynthetic adaptation : chloroplast to landscape , 2004 .

[89]  F. Woodward,et al.  Photosynthetic Adaptation , 2004, Ecological Studies.

[90]  I. E. Woodrow,et al.  Light alters the allocation of nitrogen to cyanogenic glycosides in Eucalyptus cladocalyx , 2002, Oecologia.

[91]  John R. Evans,et al.  Photosynthetic acclimation of plants to growth irradiance: the relative importance of specific leaf area and nitrogen partitioning in maximizing carbon gain , 2001 .

[92]  Carl J. Bernacchi,et al.  Improved temperature response functions for models of Rubisco‐limited photosynthesis , 2001 .

[93]  Eamus,et al.  Ecophysiological traits of deciduous and evergreen woody species in the seasonally dry tropics. , 1999, Trends in ecology & evolution.

[94]  Olevi Kull,et al.  An analysis of light effects on foliar morphology, physiology, and light interception in temperate deciduous woody species of contrasting shade tolerance. , 1998, Tree physiology.

[95]  J. F. Ribeiro,et al.  Fitofisionomias do bioma cerrado. , 1998 .

[96]  J. Sehgal,et al.  Red and lateritic soils of the world , 1998 .

[97]  G. James Collatz,et al.  Regulation of branch-level gas exchange of boreal trees: roles of shoot water potential and vapor pressure difference. , 1997, Tree physiology.

[98]  John Tenhunen,et al.  A model separating leaf structural and physiological effects on carbon gain along light gradients for the shade‐tolerant species Acer saccharum , 1997 .

[99]  W. D. Hawthorne,et al.  Ecological Profiles of Ghanaian Forest Trees , 1995 .

[100]  J. M. Lock,et al.  Legumes of Africa: a check-list. , 1989 .

[101]  D. Jordan,et al.  The CO2/O 2 specificity of ribulose 1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase : Dependence on ribulosebisphosphate concentration, pH and temperature. , 1984, Planta.

[102]  V. J. G. Houba,et al.  A novel digestion technique for multi-element plant analyses , 1983 .

[103]  M. Swaine,et al.  Distribution and Ecology of Vascular Plants in a Tropical Rain Forest. Forest Vegetation in Ghana. , 1981 .

[104]  M. Swaine,et al.  Distribution and ecology of vascular plants in a tropical rain forest , 1981, Geobotany.

[105]  S. Kuester.  The Nature and Properties of Soils , 1953, Soil Science Society of America Journal.

[106]  T. L. Lyon,et al.  The Nature and Properties of Soils , 1930 .

[107]  O. Phillips,et al.  Interactive comment on “ Structural , physiognomic and aboveground biomass variation in savanna-forest transition zones on three continents . How different are co-occurring savanna and forest formations ? ” by E . M . Veenendaal , 2022 .