Variation and association of leaf traits of desert plants in the arid
area, northwest China
Abstract
Characterizing variation and association of plant traits is critical for
understanding plant adaptation strategies and community-building
mechanisms. However, little is known about the variation in leaf traits
and the association between traits in desert plants of different life
types. We used principal components analysis, Pearson’s correlation,
phylogenetic independent contrasts, linear mixed model, and variance
decomposition to explore the variation and association of ten leaf
traits in 22 desert plants in the arid area. Our results showed that:
(1) Interspecific variation in leaf traits contributed more to total
variation than intraspecific variation. (2) Intraspecific and
interspecific variation in leaf traits were different among different
life forms, except for some traits that showed intraspecific variation
higher than interspecific in some functional types, other traits with
interspecific variation higher than intraspecific variation. (3) Desert
plants have a one-dimensional leaf economic spectrum, in which shrubs
are a fast acquisitive resource strategy, and herbs are a conservative
resource strategy. (4) There were trade-offs between leaf traits, which
were influenced by phylogeny. Our results suggest that variation of leaf
traits mainly comes from interspecific variation, but intraspecific
variation cannot be ignored. In addition, species with different life
forms will adopt different ecological strategies to adapt to arid
habitats. Therefore, we should study the variation and association of
plant traits according to different functional types, in the future.