A continental-scale analysis reveals the latitudinal gradient of stomatal density across amphistomatous species: evolutionary history vs. present-day environment.

Background And Aims: Amphistomy is a potential method for increasing photosynthetic rate; however, the latitudinal gradients of stomatal density across amphistomatous species and their drivers remain unknown.

Methods: Here, the adaxial stomatal density (SDad) and abaxial stomatal density (SDab) of 486 amphistomatous species-site combinations, belonging to 32 plant families, were collected from China, and their total stomatal density (SDtotal) and stomatal ratio (SR) were calculated.

Key Results: Overall, these four stomatal traits did not show significant phylogenetic signals. There were no significant differences in SDab and SDtotal between woody and herbaceous species, but SDad and SR were higher in woody species than in herbaceous species. Besides, a significantly positive relationship between SDab and SDad was observed. We also found that stomatal density (including SDab, SDad and SDtotal) decreased with latitude, whereas SR increased with latitude, and temperature seasonality was the most important environmental factor driving it. Besides, evolutionary history (represented by both phylogeny and species) explained ~10- to 22-fold more of the variation in stomatal traits than the present-day environment (65.2-71.1 vs. 2.9-6.8 %).

Conclusions: Our study extended our knowledge of trait-environment relationships and highlighted the importance of evolutionary history in driving stomatal trait variability.