Assessing Two Plant Leaf Functional Traits across a Temperature Gradient

Abstract

In this study we attempted to discover some of the possible plant responses to global climate change, to assess plant responses we used two plant leaf functional traits: leaf maximum assimilation rate of CO2 (Amax) and Specific Leaf Area (SLA). To evaluate increasing temperature we used a natural elevation gradient and an experimental warming meadow. We found that six of seven species showed a higher SLA with increased elevation. Amax did not respond to elevation in a universal pattern; 5 of 6 species had a higher Amax at lower elevations, but a larger sample of species found no trend: only 6/12 species had higher Amax values at lower elevations. The Warming Meadow heating had no effect on the SLA of six species and no effect on the Amax of six species. Only two species responded, Erigeron speciosus and Eriogonum subalpinum, but this response agreed with previous studies on the system. We conclude that the relatively short termed experimental warming had a small effect on plant leaf functional traits, but natural warming along an elevation gradient shows more variation. As products of this study we suggest further investigation of these traits and acceptance of plant response as an integral part of global climate change science.

Local Knowledge Graph (13 entities)

Related Works

Items connected by shared entities, co-authorship, citations, or semantic similarity.

References (10)

3 in Knowledge Hub, 7 external