Phenotypic plasticity in response to environmental variation occurs at all levels of organization and across temporal scales within plants. However, the magnitude and functional significance of plasticity is largely unexplored in perennial species. We measured the plasticity of leaf- and shoot-level physiological, morphological and developmental traits in nursery-grown Populus deltoides Bartr. ...

Plant functional traits are thought to drive variation in primary productivity. However, there is a lack of work examining how dominant species identity affects trait-productivity relationships. The productivity of 12 pasture mixtures was determined in a 3-year field experiment. The mixtures were based on either the winter-active ryegrass (Lolium perenne) or winter-dormant tall fescue (Festuca ...

mulberry (morus spp.) is a perennial tree cultivated for its foliage to rear the domesticated silkworm, bombyx mori l. mulberry has improved through conventional breeding in general aims to improve the quantity and quality of leaf yield, which have direct bearing on silk productivity. leaf senescence is one of the major constraints, which restricts the quantity of quality leaf availability for ...

This paper addresses whether the ecosystem service of animal production from grasslands depends upon plant functional identity, plant functional diversity or if the resilience of production is a function of this diversity. Using the results of nine grazing experiments the paper shows that productivity is highly dependent on one leaf trait, leaf dry matter content, as well as rainfall. Animal (s...

Annual biomass and productivity of Thalassia testudinum were determined during a year at a seagrass bed located in the Parque Nacional Morrocoy, Venezuela. Leaf, rhizome and root biomass were determined monthly, together with short-shoot density, from February 1992 to January 1993, from nine replicated core samples. Productivity was measured using the methodology by Zieman (1974) with minor mod...

Functional trait composition of plant communities has been proposed as a helpful key for understanding the mechanisms of biodiversity effects on ecosystem functioning. In this study, we applied a step-wise modeling procedure to test the relative effects of taxonomic diversity, functional identity, and functional diversity on macrophytes community productivity along water depth gradient. We samp...

Productivity of 'yellow' passion fruit (Passiflora edulis Sims. f. flavicarpa O. Deg.) is reduced by infection with Cowpea aphid-borne mosaic virus (CABMV). We examined resistance in 72 yellow passion fruit plants grown from open-pollinated commercial seed. Plants were mechanically inoculated with CABMV virus and maintained in the field in order to select contrasting genotypes for resistance. I...

Rice productivity can be limited by available photosynthetic assimilates from leaves. However, the lack of significant correlation between crop yield and leaf photosynthetic rate (A) is noted frequently. Engineering for improved leaf photosynthesis has been argued to yield little increase in crop productivity because of complicated constraints and feedback mechanisms when moving up from leaf to...

ECOPHYS is a complex computer model that simulates the growth of hybrid poplar and aspen trees. Its primary purposes are to identify major physiologically-based factors that influence tree growth and to predict how interactions among them and with the external environment will affect growth (Isebrands et al., 2000). ECOPHYS' capabilities and submodels of various tree ecosystem processes continu...

An annual cycle of biomass and productivity of wild celery (Vallisneria americana) was studied in Kings Bay, FL, USA. In situ growth rates were measured monthly between March 2001 and June 2002 in high-density stands, using a modified hole-punching technique, and applied to shoot density data to obtain areal estimates of production. Mean shoot density varied greatly over the study period, rangi...