Relationships of stomatal morphology to the environment across plant communities

Abstract

The relationship between stomatal traits and environmental drivers across plant communities has important implications for ecosystem carbon and water fluxes, but it has remained unclear. Here, we measure the stomatal morphology of 4492 species-site combinations in 340 vegetation plots across China and calculate their community-weighted values for mean, variance, skewness, and kurtosis. We demonstrate a trade-off between stomatal density and size at the community level. The community-weighted mean and variance of stomatal density are mainly associated with precipitation, while that of stomatal size is mainly associated with temperature, and the skewness and kurtosis of stomatal traits are less related to climatic and soil variables. Beyond mean climate variables, stomatal trait moments also vary with climatic seasonality and extreme conditions. Our findings extend the knowledge of stomatal trait–environment relationships to the ecosystem scale, with applications in predicting future water and carbon cycles.