Productivity does not decrease at the climate extremes of tree ranges in the Japanese archipelago.

Abstract

As per the abundant-center hypothesis, the cold- and warm-edges of the latitudinal and elevational distributions of vegetation are the result of physiological limitations caused by abiotic stress. The stand-level productivity per leaf mass of plants is an integrated physiological measure of whole-plant carbon gain. The abundant-center hypothesis specifically predicts that the productivity per leaf mass decreases at cold-edges and warm-edges. In the Japanese archipelago, the dominant functional types of trees change from evergreen hardwoods in the south to deciduous hardwoods and evergreen conifers in the north, forming latitudinal ecotones. This study tested the abundant-center hypothesis by analyzing the productivity per leaf mass of each functional type along a gradient of mean annual temperature (MAT), using forest inventory data. Although productivity per leaf mass was variable along the MAT, it neither increased nor decreased with MAT for each functional tree type. The productivity per leaf mass was also noted to not decrease at the cold-edges for evergreen and deciduous hardwoods or at the warm-edges for deciduous hardwoods and evergreen conifers. Productivity per leaf mass was not positively correlated with abundance. Thus, this study did not support the abundant-center hypothesis. Instead, physiological or ecological limitations, particularly at the seedling and sapling stages, may be the important process affecting the distribution edges of these three functional types.