Purpose of Review

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 adaptation of different tree species to global change, and define new woody plant ideotypes for stress tolerance.

Recent Findings

Sclerophylly has evolved independently in different woody plant genera and has been traditionally considered as a stress-tolerance trait. However, the underlying drivers for this functional trait are still a matter of debate; it has been proposed as an adaptive response to miscellaneous stress factors, such as nutrient scarcity, drought stress, herbivory, and cold tolerance, and due to the large investment costs of sclerophylly, it is generally associated with a longer leaf life span.

Summary

The genus Quercus constitutes a unique living laboratory to understand global adaptive patterns along the leaf economic spectrum in forest trees. With more than 400 species, oaks are distributed along six zonobiomes and its versatility has resulted in a wide range of variations in leaf functional traits and contrasting adaptive strategies. However, although this wide variability cannot be explained alone by any of the ecological factors considered, such as drought, nutrient scarcity, low temperatures during vegetative period, and physical damage, neither any of them could be fully discarded. Noteworthy, our study also suggests that these constraints may have a synergistic effect, and from a functional point of view, we can conclude that in oaks leaf habit largely modulates the physiological implications of sclerophylly.

中文翻译：

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重新审视橡树叶经济范围内的硬叶植物功能基础：通往罗马的不同道路

审查目的

定义硬叶植物在木本植物中发育的机制和叶片的经济后果将使我们能够了解其生态意义，预测不同树种适应全球变化的潜力，并定义新的木本植物耐性的表型。

最近的发现

硬核植物在不同的木本植物属中独立地进化，并且传统上被认为是胁迫耐受性状。但是，这种功能特征的潜在驱动因素仍然是一个争论的问题。已经提出将其作为对多种胁迫因素的适应性响应，例如营养缺乏，干旱胁迫，食草和耐寒性，并且由于硬叶植物的高投资成本，通常与更长的叶片寿命有关。

概要

属栎组成一个独特的生活实验室，以了解林木叶片经济范围内的全球适应模式。橡树有400多个物种，沿六个地带生物群系分布，其多功能性导致叶片功能性状的广泛变化和不同的适应策略。然而，尽管这种广泛的变异性不能单独用所考虑的任何生态因素来解释，例如干旱，营养缺乏，植物生长时期的低温和人为破坏，但它们中的任何一个都不能完全丢弃。值得注意的是，我们的研究还表明，这些限制可能具有协同作用，从功能的角度，我们可以得出结论，橡树的叶子习性在很大程度上调节了硬核的生理影响。