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Interactions between leaf traits and environmental factors enhance the understanding of leaf habits in a subtropical forest
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  • Yuanzhi Qin,
  • Congrong Wang,
  • zhou tian yang,
  • Yanan Fei,
  • Yaozhan Xu,
  • Xiujuan Qiao,
  • Mingxi Jiang
Yuanzhi Qin
Wuhan Botanical Garden Chinese Academy of Sciences
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Congrong Wang
Chinese Academy of Sciences Wuhan Botanical Garden
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zhou tian yang
Wuhan Botanical Garden Chinese Academy of Sciences
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Yanan Fei
Chinese Academy of Sciences Wuhan Botanical Garden
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Yaozhan Xu
Chinese Academy of Sciences Wuhan Botanical Garden
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Xiujuan Qiao
Chinese Academy of Sciences Wuhan Botanical Garden

Corresponding Author:[email protected]

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Mingxi Jiang
Chinese Academy of Sciences Wuhan Botanical Garden
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Abstract

It is well known that evergreen and deciduous species have different functional traits and utilize different strategies in growth and adaptation to environments, however little work has been done to elucidate whether leaf habit mediate the effect of trait-environment interactions on plant performance. Here we wanted to illuminate whether relative growth rate of deciduous and evergreen species depended on multiple trait-environment interactions. We measured eight leaf traits of 1230 individuals from 25 species and collected topographic factors, edaphic variables and competition index in a subtropic evergreen and deciduous mixed forest. Then we modeled plant relative growth rate with high-order trait-environment interactions for evergreen and deciduous species respectively using generalized linear mixed model and visualized the difference between leaf habits. Results showed that leaf habits were divided by trait PC1 (41.8%) which was related to leaf lifespan and resource acquisition. We found that trait-environment interactions improved growth predictions for both leaf habits but the optimal models for them were different. Moreover, the explanatory power of deciduous species models was always higher than that of evergreens. These results indicated that leaf habits with different life history strategies were reflected by trait-environment interactions. We emphasized the importance of leaf habits in explaining forest productivity and functions, and future research should focus on the effects of leaf habits on other demographic metrics and spatial patterns to solve the coexistence of the two leaf habits in mixed forests.