Comparison Of Plant Leaf, Height And Seed Functional Traits In Dry-hot Valleys

Plant functional traits are those traits which impact ecosystem processes or which adapt the species to environmental change. Examples include leaf functional traits, seed traits, reproduction guild, height, growth rate, and absorption of nutrients. Plant functional traits are closely related to environmental factors and to the structure of plant communities and ecosystems. It is also the case that the functional traits of plants can respond to and adapt to environmental changes. Such traits as leaf functional traits are closely related to biomass, resource acquisition and utilization, and resource use efficiency of plants. Plant height is often associated with competitive vigor, fecundity, and with time intervals between disturbances. There are also important trade-offs between plant height and tolerance, or avoidance, of environmental stress. Interspecific variation in seed mass has an important taxonomic component with more closely related taxa being more likely to be similar in seed mass. Smaller seeds tend to disperse further, while larger seeds tend to produce seedlings that are better able to establish, and survive, environmental hazards. Plant functional traits have been the focus of much recent ecological research. This research has three basic components: (1) constructing trait matrices to find the characteristics and regularities of distribution of a plant; (2) exploring the biological relationships among these traits; and (3) determining relationships between traits and environments.In this thesis, we selected 88 woody plants occurred in Nujiang, Lancangjiang and Yuanjiang dry-hot valleys and measured five traits: Leaf Area (LA), Dry Mass (DM), specific leaf area (SLA), plant height (H) and seed mass (SM). Four questions were addressed: 1) What correlations among these five functional traits appear? 2) How do these five functional traits vary between and within the three valleys? 3) What differences in these five functional traits occur within the same species in the three valleys? 4) What correlation is there between elevation and the five functional traits?Our results showed that: 1) There were significant positive correlations between DM with H and LA, between H with LA and SM, but there was no significant negative correlation between SLA with DM, H and SM. 2) There was no significant difference among these five functional traits. 3) Between the three valleys, the variation of LA and DM was the greatest among the variables studies and that of SLA the least. In addition, the variations among species'LA, DM and SLA in Yuanjiang were all greater than those in the other two valleys, but the H of Yuanjiang was less than those in the other two valleys. Moreover, the variation of SM in Lancangjiang was also greater than that in the other two valleys. 4) Between the three valleys, the leaf functional traits of 13 species showed a significant difference. 5) There were no significant correlations between elevation and LA, DM, SLA, H and SM.