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A weak relationship between crown architectural and leaf traits in saplings of eight tropical rain-forest species in Indonesia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2008

Koichi Takahashi*
Affiliation:
Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, Shinshu University, Matsumoto 390-8621, Japan
Yumi Mikami
Affiliation:
Graduate School of Science and Technology, Shinshu University, Matsumoto 390-8621, Japan
*
1Corresponding author. Email: koichit@shinshu-u.ac.jp
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Abstract

There are two trade-offs at the levels of leaves and crowns, i.e. assimilation capacity per leaf mass is greater for shorter-lived leaves, and unbranched species grow faster in height by allocating carbon more to trunk than to leaves and branches compared with highly branched species. The hypotheses were tested that the degree of branching (LTB) correlates with leaf traits and that height growth rate is negatively correlated with the degree of branching and leaf life span (LLS) by examining saplings of five canopy and subcanopy species, two shrub species and one invasive subshrub species (Clidemia hirta) in a tropical rain forest, West Java, Indonesia. Of the eight species, the most and least branched species were Castanopsis acuminatissima and Macaranga semiglobosa, respectively. Leaf traits examined were leaf size, LLS, leaf mass per area (LMA), leaf nitrogen concentration per mass (Nmass) and per area. LLS tended to be positively correlated with LMA, and negatively correlated with Nmass. Leaf size was negatively correlated with LTB, but the other leaf traits were not correlated with LTB. The height growth of the eight species was low, irrespective of LTB and LLS, for understorey individuals. The height growth of gap individuals was negatively correlated with LLS for the eight species, and also negatively with LTB for the seven species other than one subshrub species. Thus, the degree of branching was correlated with leaf size only among the five leaf traits, and both leaf life span and the degree of branching affected the height growth of gap individuals, except for the subshrub species.

Information

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008
Figure 0

Table 1. Characteristics of saplings of eight species in a tropical montane forest, Indonesia. Species are arranged in descending order by degree of branching. U = understorey conditions, G = canopy gap conditions. C = Canopy species, SC = subcanopy species, S = shrub species, SS = subshrub species.

Figure 1

Figure 1. Relationships of LMA (a) and Nmass (b) with leaf life span among eight species in a tropical montane forest, Indonesia. Solid and open circles represent understorey and gap individuals, respectively. The results of statistical tests are shown in Table 2.

Figure 2

Table 2. The results of general linear model for the effects of canopy conditions (gap vs understorey), leaf life span (LLS) and the interaction on leaf size of individual leaves, leaf mass per area (LMA), leaf nitrogen concentration per leaf mass (Nmass), per leaf area (Narea) and height growth rate (HG). Leaf area was used as leaf size. Leaf size and Nmass were ln-transformed and square-root arcsine-transformed before the analysis, respectively. F1,12-values are shown with the significance level. Whole-model R2 is also shown on the bottom of each column. ** = P < 0.01, *** = P < 0.001. n = 16. Two significant relationships are shown in Figures 1a (LMA), 1b (Nmass) and 3b (HG).

Figure 3

Table 3. The results of general linear model for the effects of canopy conditions (gap vs understorey), the total length of trunk and branches at 180 cm trunk height (LTB) and the interaction on leaf size of individual leaves, leaf life span (LLS), leaf mass per area (LMA), leaf nitrogen concentration per leaf mass (Nmass), per leaf area (Narea) and height growth rate (HG). Leaf area was used as leaf size. Leaf size and Nmass were ln-transformed and square-root arcsine-transformed before the analysis, respectively. F1,12-values are shown with the significance level. Whole-model R2 is also shown on the bottom of each column. F1,10-values in parentheses are the statistical results for the height growth rates of the seven species other than subshrub Clidemia hirta (n = 14). * = P < 0.05, ** = P < 0.01. n = 16. Two significant relationships are shown in Figures 2 (leaf size) and 3a (HG).

Figure 4

Figure 2. Relationship between leaf size and total length of trunk and branches (LTB) at 180 cm trunk height among eight species in a tropical montane forest, Indonesia. Solid and open circles represent understorey and gap individuals, respectively. The results of statistical tests are shown in Table 3.

Figure 5

Figure 3. Relationships of height growth rate with ln-transformed LTB (a) and leaf life span (b) among eight species in a tropical montane forest, Indonesia. Solid and open circles represent understorey and gap individuals, respectively. The results of statistical tests are shown in Tables 2 and 3. Cl = Clidemia hirta.