Leaf size and specific leaf area of tropical deciduous trees increase with elevation in soil moisture content

Abstract

A functional trait ndash based approach provides insight into the functional variations between and within tropical deciduous forests across large gradients of SMC To test this hypothesis we selected nine forest fragment sites in the tropical deciduous forests of India which exhibited significant variations in SMC At all nine sites we measured leaf area LA and specific leaf area SLA of the four deciduous tree species viz Buchanania cochinchinensis Diospyros melanoxylon Lagerstroemia parviflora and Terminalia tomentosa commonly observed in the forest region We recorded significant differences for LA and SLA for the four deciduous tree species across the nine study sites in a gradient of SMC The inter species and within species differences were also significant LA and SLA of the four tree species exhibited strong positive linear relationships with SMC across the nine sites These variations in functional traits were mainly controlled by SMC We suggest that LA and SLA are important functional traits for detecting the effects of variations in SMC on the physiology and distribution of trees in tropical deciduous forests LA and SLA are the key functional traits which are linked with major ecosystem processes and proper research on these traits of the deciduous trees could help in categorizing tree communities for the sustainable development of the tropical deciduous forest ecosystems