Response of Plant Functional Traits and Its Leaf Economics Spectrum to Urban Pavement
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    Abstract:

    To understand the adaptation mechanism of plants to the urban ecological environment from the perspective of functional ecology, three common tree species (Fraxinus chinensis, Sophora japonica and Koelreuteria paniculata) planted in three different treatment plots: pervious brick pavement with a permeability coefficient of more than 0.4mm/s, impervious brick pavement with a permeability coefficient near zero, and nonpavement were selected to understand the effects of pavement on leaf functional characteristics and leaf economics spectrum. The result showed that surface temperature was significantly higher in the pavement treatments than that in the control treatment (P<0.01), with a higher surface temperature noted for the pervious pavement than that for the nonpavement. Soil moisture content was significantly lower in the impervious pavement treatment than that in the pervious pavement and control treatments (P<0.01). Pavement caused heat stress on Sophora japonica and Koelreuteria paniculate, and the impervious pavement caused drought stress on Fraxinus chinensis growth. Leaf functional traits showed relatively consistent ecological countermeasures to adapt to urban environmental changes. Pearson analyses indicated that leaf chlorophyll showed significant positive correlation with specific leaf area (P<0.05), and highly significant negative correlation with leaf dry matter content and leaf tissue density, respectively (P<0.01). Leaf dry matter content showed highly significant negative correlation leaf tissue density (P<0.01). The results indicated that a spectrum of leaf economics also existed in urban pavement environment, and that of the represent species was generally more biased toward the fast investmentreturn on the leaf economics spectrum. In urban pavement environment, plants would increase leaf dry matter content, leaf tissue density, and reduce stomatal area, stomatal density, and specific leaf area to adapt to special habitats at high temperature and drought stress. Thus, it was necessary to select heat and drought tolerant tree species, manage land with shadowing or irrigation, and reduce trimming branches, in order to guarantee tree growth in paved urban environments.

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History
  • Received:September 22,2018
  • Revised:
  • Adopted:
  • Online: March 10,2019
  • Published: March 10,2019
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