Global patterns of the leaf economics spectrum in wetlands
Ten years ago, I took part in a workshop that aimed at establishing a trait-based database on wetland plants. Today, a paper entitled “Global patterns of the leaf economics spectrum in wetlands” was published in Nature Communications (open access) and our paper shows that wetland plants in general show a shift within trait space along the same common slope as observed in non-wetland plants, with lower leaf mass per area, higher leaf nitrogen and phosphorus, faster photosynthetic rates, and shorter leaf life span compared to non-wetland plants. This may not be very surprising to a specialist but our findings are robust as these are based upon 365 species in 151 studies.
The analyses took so long since we had to wait for a meticulous and patient Chinese PhD student (the first author) to dive into our uncompleted database and bring it up to date.
You can access the full paper via this link.
The analyses took so long since we had to wait for a meticulous and patient Chinese PhD student (the first author) to dive into our uncompleted database and bring it up to date.
You can access the full paper via this link.