| Leaf and stem traits of plant communities along rainfall gradient in arid and semi-arid areas |
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| DOI：10.7606/j.issn.1000-7601.2010.04.14 |
| Key Words: rainfall gradient LMA Narea Chlarea biomass ratio of green stem or branch/leaf |
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| Abstract: |
| Plant leaf and stem traits include the leaf mass per areas(LMA), leaf life span(LL)，nitrogen content per unit area (Narea) and the chlorophyll content per unit area ( Chlarea). These features, directly affecting the properties of carbon sequestration capacity of plants, are the adaptation strategies of plants resistant to the environment in the long process of production in order to obtain maximum photosynthetic formation. This study is to identify plant leaf and stems traits (LMA, Nares and Chlarea) and explore the changes of adapting to progressive drought stress along rainfall gradient in arid and semi-arid areas. The results show that different families and genera of plants distributed in Lanzhou, Baiyin, Jingtai and Linze experimental sites take different attributes of leaf, stem or branch response characteristics against drought stress with annual mean precipitation reducing. The LMA and content of Nares increase with intensification of drought stress and Chlarea content increases with the decline of drought stress, which reflects the strengthening of plant adaptation to drought stress in some extent. In addition, green stem or branch/leaf biomass ratio in Linze species is the largest with annual mean precipitation reducing, followed by Jingtai species, even Baiyin species ，whereas Lanzhou species is the smallest. With the increase of drought stress, the biomass ratio of green stem or branch/leaf is gradually increasing in dry areas. |
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