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Updated: Jun 6, 2025

Relating Stomatal Conductance to Leaf Functional Traits
Published on: October 12, 2015
From seedlings to adults: Linking survival and leaf functional traits over ontogeny
María Natalia Umaña1, Jessica Needham2, Claire Fortunel3
1Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA.
Abstract:
As long-lived tropical trees grow into the multi-layered canopy and face different environmental conditions, the relationships between leaf traits and whole-plant survival can vary over ontogeny. We tested the strength and direction of the relationships between leaf traits and long-term survival data across life stages for woody species from a subtropical forest in Puerto Rico. Trait-survival relationships were largely consistent across ontogeny with conservative traits leading to higher survival rates. The stage-specific relationship R2 increased by up to one order of magnitude compared to studies not considering ontogenetic trait variations. Stage-specific traits were significant predictors of their corresponding stage-specific survival: Seedlings traits were better predictors of seedling survival than adult traits, and adult traits were better predictors of maximum adult survival than seedling traits. Our results suggest that stage-specific leaf traits reflect different strategies over ontogeny and can substantially improve predictability of survival models in tropical forests.
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