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Revisiting the Functional Basis of Sclerophylly Within the Leaf Economics Spectrum of Oaks: Different Roads to Rome

  • Ecological Function (M Watt, Section Editor)
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Abstract

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.

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Acknowledgments

The study has been supported by the TRY initiative on plant traits (http://www.try-db.org). The TRY initiative and database is hosted, developed, and maintained by J. Kattge and G. Boenisch (Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, Jena, Germany). TRY is currently supported by Future Earth/bioDISCOVERY and the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig.

Funding

This research was funded by Instituto Nacional de Investigación y Tecnología Agraria y Alimentaria (INIA) grant number RTA2015–-00054-C02-01 and by Gobierno de Aragón H09_20R research group. Work of D. A. F. is supported by a FPI-INIA contract BES-2017-081208. Research of D. S. K. is supported by a DOC INIA-CCAA contract co-funded by INIA and European Social Fund.

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Author notes

  1. David Alonso-Forn, Domingo Sancho-Knapik, Juan Pedro Ferrio, José Javier Peguero-Pina and Eustaquio Gil-Pelegrín contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Forest Resources Unit, Agrifood Research and Technology Centre of Aragón (CITA), Avenida Montañana 930, E-50059, Zaragoza, Spain

    David Alonso-Forn, Domingo Sancho-Knapik, Juan Pedro Ferrio, José Javier Peguero-Pina & Eustaquio Gil-Pelegrín

  2. Instituto Agroalimentario de Aragón, IA2 (CITA-Universidad de Zaragoza), Zaragoza, Spain

    Domingo Sancho-Knapik & José Javier Peguero-Pina

  3. Aragon Agency for research and development (ARAID), E-50018, Zaragoza, Spain

    Juan Pedro Ferrio

  4. Ecophysiology and Vegetation Ecology, University of Wuerzburg, Julius-von-Sachs-Platz 3, D-97082, Würzburg, Germany

    Amauri Bueno & Markus Riederer

  5. Division of Forest and Biomaterials Science, Graduate School of Agriculture, Kyoto University, Oiwake, Kitashirakawa, Kyoto, 606-8502, Japan

    Yusuke Onoda

  6. Ecology, Evolution and Behavior, University of Minnesota, Saint Paul, MN, 55108, USA

    Jeannine Cavender-Bares

  7. Crop Science and Plant Biology, Estonian University of Life Sciences, Kreutzwaldi 1, 51006, Tartu, Estonia

    Ülo Niinemets

  8. Ulm University Institute of Systematic Botany and Ecology Albert-Einstein, Allee 11, D-89081, Ulm, Germany

    Steven Jansen

  9. Systems Ecology, Department of Ecological Science, Faculty of Science, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, De Boelelaan 1085, 1081 HV, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Johannes H.C. Cornelissen

  10. School of Life Science, Northwest University, 229 North Taibai Road, Xi’an, 710069, Shaanxi Province, China

    Yongfu Chai

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  1. David Alonso-Forn
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David Alonso-Forn, Domingo Sancho-Knapik, Juan pedro Ferrio, José Javier Peguero-Pina, Amauri Bueno, Yusuke Onoda, Jeannine Cavender-Bares, Ülo Niinemets, Steven Jansen, Markus Riederer, Johannes H.C. Cornelissen, Yongfu Chai and Eustaqui Gil-Pelegrín declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Alonso-Forn, D., Sancho-Knapik, D., Ferrio, J.P. et al. Revisiting the Functional Basis of Sclerophylly Within the Leaf Economics Spectrum of Oaks: Different Roads to Rome. Curr Forestry Rep 6, 260–281 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40725-020-00122-7

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