Leaf Multi-Element Network Reveals the Change of Species Dominance Under Nitrogen Deposition.

Elements are important functional traits reflecting plant response to climate change. Multiple elements work jointly in plant physiology. Although a large number of studies have focused on the variation and allocation of multiple elements in plants, it remains unclear how these elements co-vary to adapt to environmental change.

Higher soil acidification risk in southeastern Tibetan Plateau.

Stable soil pH is a key property in maintaining an ecosystem's structure, function, and sustainability. Increasing atmospheric deposition and grassland use on the Tibetan Plateau (TP) may increase the soil acidification risk, but we lack such information to date. Here, we evaluated the soil acidification risk in the TP, by comparing it with that in the Mongolia Plateau (MP) and applying the acid-base balance principles on atmospheric inputs, soils, and plants from 1980 to 2019.

Spatiotemporal variability, source apportionment, and acid-neutralizing capacity of atmospheric wet base-cation deposition in China.

Atmospheric wet deposition of base cations (BCs) plays a significant role in providing plant nutrients and buffering acidification. However, the temporal dynamic of wet BC deposition in China during the past two decades remain unclear. Here, we used long-term monitoring and literature data since 2000 to assess the temporal dynamics (seasonal and inter-annual variation), spatial patterns, main influencing factors, source apportionment, and capacity to neutralize the acidity of wet BC depositions at site, regional, and national scales.

Variation and evolution of C:N ratio among different organs enable plants to adapt to N-limited environments.

Carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) are the primary elements involved in the growth and development of plants. The C:N ratio is an indicator of nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) and an input parameter for some ecological and ecosystem models. However, knowledge remains limited about the convergent or divergent variation in the C:N ratios among different plant organs (e.

Variation in leaf morphological, stomatal, and anatomical traits and their relationships in temperate and subtropical forests.

Leaf functional traits have attracted the attention of ecologists for several decades, but few studies have systematically assessed leaf morphological traits (termed "economic traits"), stomatal (termed "hydraulic"), and anatomical traits of entire forest communities, thus it is unclear whether their relationships are consistent among trees, shrubs, and herbs, and which anatomical traits should be assigned to economical or hydraulic traits. In this study, we collected leaf samples of 106 plant species in temperate forests and 164 plant species in subtropical forests and determined nine key functional traits. We found that functional traits differed between temperate and subtropical forests.