Premium
Plastic changes of leaf mass per area and leaf nitrogen content in response to canopy openings in saplings of eight deciduous broad‐leaved tree species
Author(s) -
Takahashi Koichi,
Seino Tatsuyuki,
Kohyama Takashi
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
ecological research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.628
H-Index - 68
eISSN - 1440-1703
pISSN - 0912-3814
DOI - 10.1007/s11284-004-0003-z
Subject(s) - canopy , deciduous , crown (dentistry) , biology , leaf area index , botany , nitrogen , leaf size , horticulture , agronomy , chemistry , medicine , dentistry , organic chemistry
Leaf nitrogen content per area (N area ) is a good indicator of assimilative capacity of leaves of deciduous broad‐leaved trees. This study examined the degrees of increase in N area in response to canopy openings as leaf mass per area (LMA) and leaf nitrogen content per mass (N mass ) in saplings of eight deciduous broad‐leaved tree species in Hokkaido, northern Japan. Five of the species were well‐branched species with a large number of small leaves (lateral‐growth type), and the other three species were less‐branched species with a small number of large leaves (vertical‐growth type). The degrees of increase in N area were compared between the two crown types. In closed‐canopy conditions, leaves of the vertical‐growth species tended to have a lower LMA and higher N mass than those of the lateral‐growth species, which resulted in similar N area for both. LMA increased in canopy openings in the eight species, and the degrees of increase were not largely different between the lateral‐ and vertical‐growth species. On the contrary, N mass was unchanged in canopy openings in the eight species. As a result, N area of each species increased in canopy openings in proportion to the increase in LMA, and the degrees of increase in N area were similar in the lateral‐ and vertical‐growth species. Therefore, this study showed that the degrees of increase in N area were not correlated with the crown architecture (i.e., the lateral‐ and vertical‐growth types).