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Article
Open AccessLight competition drives species replacement during secondary tropical forest succession
Light competition is thought to drive successional shifts in species dominance in closed vegetations, but few studies have assessed this for species-rich and vertically structured tropical forests. We analyzed...
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Article
Contrasting Silicon Dynamics Between Aboveground Vegetation and Soil Along a Secondary Successional Gradient in a Cool-temperate Deciduous Forest
Silicon is an essential or beneficial element in many organisms. Silicon uptake by vegetation strongly influences terrestrial silicon dynamics; however, little is known about the changes in plant silicon cycli...
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Article
Open AccessLeaf-level coordination principles propagate to the ecosystem scale
Fundamental axes of variation in plant traits result from trade-offs between costs and benefits of resource-use strategies at the leaf scale. However, it is unclear whether similar trade-offs propagate to the ...
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Article
Quantifying functional trait assembly along a temperate successional gradient with consideration of intraspecific variations and functional groups
Advances in functional trait ecology allow us to evaluate community structure and community assembly in a more quantitative and generalised manner. Functional traits are known to differ greatly across local ca...
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Article
Open AccessThe global spectrum of plant form and function: enhanced species-level trait dataset
Here we provide the ‘Global Spectrum of Plant Form and Function Dataset’, containing species mean values for six vascular plant traits. Together, these traits –plant height, stem specific density, leaf area, l...
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Article
How plants grow under gravity conditions besides 1 g: perspectives from hypergravity and space experiments that employ bryophytes as a model organism
Plants have evolved and grown under the selection pressure of gravitational force at 1 g on Earth. In response to this selection pressure, plants have acquired gravitropism to sense gravity and change their growt...
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Article
Open AccessAusTraits, a curated plant trait database for the Australian flora
We introduce the AusTraits database - a compilation of values of plant traits for taxa in the Australian flora (hereafter AusTraits). AusTraits synthesises data on 448 traits across 28,640 taxa from field camp...
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Article
Revisiting the Functional Basis of Sclerophylly Within the Leaf Economics Spectrum of Oaks: Different Roads to Rome
Defining the mechanisms behind and the leaf economic consequences of the development of sclerophylly in woody plants will allow us to understand its ecological implications, anticipate the potential for adapta...
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Article
A simple method to estimate the rate of the bamboo expansion based on one-time measurement of spatial distribution of culms
Moso bamboo (Phyllostachys edulis) groves have been expanding in Japanese forests, thus an assessment of the rate of bamboo grove expansion is a critical issue. Previous studies used time-series data which span t...
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Article
Plant functional trait change across a warming tundra biome
The tundra is warming more rapidly than any other biome on Earth, and the potential ramifications are far-reaching because of global feedback effects between vegetation and climate. A better understanding of h...
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Article
Publisher Correction: Core microbiomes for sustainable agroecosystems
Owing to a technical error, this Perspective was originally published without its received and accepted dates; the dates “Received: 31 December 2017; Accepted: 23 March 2018” have now been included in all vers...
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Article
Core microbiomes for sustainable agroecosystems
In an era of ecosystem degradation and climate change, maximizing microbial functions in agroecosystems has become a prerequisite for the future of global agriculture. However, managing species-rich communitie...
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Chapter
The Leaf Economics Spectrum and its Underlying Physiological and Anatomical Principles
Large variations are found in leaf morphology and physiology across species in nature, reflecting diversity in carbon fixation and growth strategies. These variations in leaf traits are not random; rather, the...
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Chapter
Leaf Anatomy and Function
Plant leaves provide the following main functions: (1) light interception and utilization of light energy for photosynthesis. This includes efficient light absorption under low and moderate light, while reduci...
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Article
Phosphorus and nitrogen resorption from different chemical fractions in senescing leaves of tropical tree species on Mount Kinabalu, Borneo
Nutrient resorption, a process by which plants degrade organic compounds and resorb their nutrients from senescing tissues, is a crucial plant function to increase growth and fitness in nutrient-poor environme...
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Article
Decades-long effects of high CO2 concentration on soil nitrogen dynamics at a natural CO2 spring
The effects of high atmospheric CO2 concentration ([CO2]) on ecosystem processes have been explored using temporal facilities such as open-top-chambers and free-air CO2 enrichment. However, the effects of high [C...
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Article
A quantitative analysis of phenotypic variations of Metrosideros polymorpha within and across populations along environmental gradients on Mauna Loa, Hawaii
Metrosideros polymorpha, a dominant tree species in the Hawaiian Islands, shows an extreme phenotypic polymorphism both across gradients of climatic/edaphic conditions and within populati...
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Article
Plant functional traits have globally consistent effects on competition
Data from millions of trees in thousands of locations are used to show that certain key traits affect competitive ability in predictable ways, and that there are trade-offs between traits that favour growth wi...
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Article
Optimal stomatal behaviour around the world
Stomatal conductance is a land-surface attribute that links the water and carbon cycles. Analysis of a global database covering a wide range of plant functional types and biomes now provides a framework for pr...
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Article
Phenotypic and genetic differences in a perennial herb across a natural gradient of CO2 concentration
The atmospheric CO2 concentration [CO2] has been increasing markedly since the industrial revolution and is predicted to reach 500–1,000 μmol mol−1 by the end of this century. Although the short-term and acclimat...
