The effect of plant trait variation on plant production

Abstract

Community ecology has recently begun to focus on using plant functional traits to understand community processes. In this experiment, I reduced specific leaf area (SLA) variance to determine how a reduced trait variance would affect plant production in a sub-alpine meadow community. The SLA was compiled by sampling one leaflet from the dominant individual in each square of a 0.5 x 0.5 m2 quadrat with 100 squares. This was repeated for five plots.. The Net Ecosystem Exchange of carbon (NEE) was measured at each plot using a Li-cor 7500 The biomass and NEE was not significantly different between plots before trait manipulation was made (P = 0.304), no statistical significance was found in either NEE or biomass measurements between reduced-variance treatments and biomass controls post manipulation either (STATS). While these results may reflect a true equivalence between treatments, they may also be the result of experimental error, insufficient replication, or the short time or small scale of the experiment. More work should be done to determine how trait variation affects plant production at the individual level.

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