Biogeography of Leaf Longevity and Foliar Habit

Abstract

There is, apparently, no general restriction on variation in leaf longevity per se along local and regional spatial gradients. Leaf longevity is only part of a suite of foliar traits that act in concert to ensure effective photosynthetic function in a given environmental regime (Wright et al. 2004; Shipley et al. 2006). Coordinated quantitative variation among the set of foliar traits can underpin equivalently effective photosynthetic function despite considerable variation in leaf longevity (Marks and Lechowicz 2006). As a consequence, leaf longevity typically varies substantially among species even in a single locality, a point made forcefully in earlier chapters but worth reinforcing here with another example. A careful study of 100 species representing four growth forms in the understory of a tropical montane forest (Fig. 9.1) shows the high variability in leaf survivorship curves among co-occurring species; survivorship, in turn, is consistently correlated with elements in the leaf economic spectrum (Wright et al. 2004) as well as with aspects of foliar defense such as condensed tannin content and leaf toughness (Shiodera et al. 2008).KeywordsDeciduous SpeciesEvergreen SpeciesLeaf LongevityFavorable PeriodTropical Montane ForestThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.