The South China Botanical Garden has made new progress in the study of the influence of functional traits on the life history of plants in the tropical monsoon evergreen broad-leaved forest in South Asia

Functional traits are the core plant attributes of plants to respond and adapt to environmental changes, and are an important research tool
for predicting ecosystem response and adaptation to global climate change.
It is a research hotspot
in forest ecology to explore species growth strategies and survival mechanisms and their response and adaptation to global change through plant functional traits.
Plant life histories, including plant growth, death, and replenishment, closely affect species fitness, forest productivity, species diversity, and forest carbon sequestration
.
Because the intrinsic connections of plant life histories and the correlation between functional traits and plant life histories remain largely unknown, predicting the structure and dynamics of forest communities under global change is quite challenging
.

He Pengcheng, a postdoctoral fellow at the Ecological Research Center of South China Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, based on a 20-hectare sample of the subtropical monsoon evergreen broad-leaved forest, combined with the period from 2005 to 2020553 The growth rate, mortality rate and replenishment rate of dominant tree species were measured, and functional traits closely related to plant photosynthesis, nutrients, hydraulics and drought resistance were measured, and it was found that the growth rate of trees was independent of mortality and replenishment rate.
Shoot water conductivity explains 27% of the change in tree growth rate, while wood density is significantly negatively correlated with
growth rate.
In addition, the plant mortality rate of plants with longer leaf life is lower, the tree species with high carbon acquisition rate, nutrient content and water conductivity have faster replenishment rate, and the growth rate and replenishment rate of tree species with fast resource acquisition rate are also faster
.
The results show that the intrinsic relationship between plant life history in subtropical monsoon forest is weak, and there is no trade-off between tree growth and death.
The change of plant replenishment rate is consistent
with the change of leaf economics and plant hydraulic traits.