The root economics spectrum

Root Branching Is a Leading Root Trait of the Plant Economics Spectrum in Temperate Trees

Global vegetation models use conceived relationships between functional traits to simulate ecosystem responses to environmental change. In this context, the concept of the leaf economics spectrum (LES) suggests coordinated leaf trait variation, and separates species which invest resources into short-lived leaves with a high expected energy return rate from species with longer-lived leaves and s...

The root economics spectrum : divergence of absorptive root strategies with root 1 diameter

Economic strategies of plant absorptive roots vary with root diameter

Plant roots typically vary along a dominant ecological axis, the root economics spectrum, depicting a tradeoff between resource acquisition and conservation. For absorptive roots, which are mainly responsible for resource acquisition, we hypothesized that root economic strategies differ with increasing root diameter. To test this hypothesis, we used seven plant species (a fern, a conifer, and f...

Evidence of the 'plant Economics Spectrum' in a Subarctic Flora

1. A fundamental trade-off among vascular plants between traits inferring rapid resource acquisition and those leading to conservation of resources has now been accepted broadly, but is based on empirical data with a strong bias toward leaf traits. Here we test whether interspecific variation in traits of different plant organs obeys this same trade-off and whether within-plant trade-offs are c...

Intraspecific Trait Variation and Coordination: Root and Leaf Economics Spectra in Coffee across Environmental Gradients

Hypotheses on the existence of a universal "Root Economics Spectrum" (RES) have received arguably the least attention of all trait spectra, despite the key role root trait variation plays in resource acquisition potential. There is growing interest in quantifying intraspecific trait variation (ITV) in plants, but there are few studies evaluating (i) the existence of an intraspecific RES within ...