Abstract
BackgroundFunctional trait-based ecological research has been instrumental in advancing our understanding of environmental changes. It is still, however, unclear how the functional traits of urban plants respond to atmospheric particulate matter, and which trade-off strategies are shown. In order to explore the variation of plant functional traits with the gradient of urban atmospheric particulate matter, we divided atmospheric particulate matter into three levels according to road distance, and measured the variation of six essential leaf functional traits and their trade-off strategies.ResultsHere, we show that the functional traits of plants can be used as predictors of plant response to urban atmospheric particulate matter. Within the study, leaf thickness, leaf dry matter content, leaf tissue density, stomatal density were positively correlated with atmospheric particulate matter. On the contrary, chlorophyll content index and specific leaf area were negatively correlated with atmospheric particulate matter. Plants can improve the efficiency of gas exchange by optimizing the spatial distribution of leaf stomata. Under the atmospheric particulate matter environment, urban plants show a trade-off relationship of economics spectrum traits at the intraspecific level.ConclusionUnder the influence of urban atmospheric particulate matter, urban plant shows a “slow investment-return” type in the leaf economics spectrum at the intraspecific level, with lower specific leaf area, lower chlorophyll content index, ticker leaves, higher leaf dry matter content, higher leaf tissue density and higher stomatal density. This finding provides a new perspective for understanding the resource trades-off strategy of plants adapting to atmospheric particulate matter.
Highlights
Functional trait-based ecological research has been instrumental in advancing our understanding of environmental changes
Leaf dust deposition under different levels of atmospheric particulate matter As shown in Fig. 1, in three different locations of urban highway, the dust collection capacity of Euonymus japonicus leaves gradually decreases along the center of the road to both sides
We found that the dust deposition of Euonymus japonicus leaves in the middle of the main road (T3) was (0.0052 ± 0.0022 g) > that between the relief road and the sidewalk (T2) (0.0025 ± 0.001 g) > that of the outer sidewalk (T1) (0.0019 ± 0.001 g)
Summary
Functional trait-based ecological research has been instrumental in advancing our understanding of environmental changes. It is still, unclear how the functional traits of urban plants respond to atmospheric particulate matter, and which trade-off strategies are shown. The natural removal mechanism is an effective way to alleviate the pressure of urban air pollution, and urban trees are the critical factor [10,11,12]. As an important part of the urban ecosystem, can beautify the environment, and effectively retain and adsorb particulate matter in the atmosphere [13,14,15,16,17]. Is it worth noting that the retention of atmospheric particles in plant leaves will affect its growth and development? Do different dust deposits have different effects on plants? There is still a big gap in the research on this problem
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