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Stem, branch and leaf biomass‐density relationships in forest communities
Author(s) -
Zhang WeiPing,
Jia Xin,
Morris E. Charles,
Bai YanYuan,
Wang GenXuan
Publication year - 2012
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/s11284-012-0959-z
Subject(s) - biomass (ecology) , range (aeronautics) , plant community , biology , botany , environmental science , agronomy , materials science , ecological succession , composite material
Abstract Defining and quantifying biomass–density relationships in dense plant stands has been a long‐standing issue in both theoretical and empirical studies. Most existing/traditional studies focus on whole plant individuals, without considering different plant components (e.g., stem, branch and leaf). However, the analysis of biomass–density relationships for different plant parts is linked to those for whole plants, and thus important for understanding plant strategies for utilizing resources and community dynamics. In our study, we investigated standing stem ( M S ), branch ( M B ) and leaf ( M L ) biomass–density relationships, across a range of forest communities in China. The results showed that there was no constant predicted value (e.g., −1/2 or −1/3 for M S ; −1/2, −1/3 or 0 for M B and M L ) that can describe all the relationships, and that the scaling exponents for stem, branch and leaf biomass varied across different forest types. In particular, standing leaf biomass (leaf biomass per unit area) was not constant in these forest communities. Furthermore, stem biomass–density lines were steeper than corresponding branch and leaf lines across most of these forest communities.