Department of Botany, University of Hawaii, 3190 Maile Way, Honolulu, HI 96822, USA.
New Phytol. 2010 Jan;185(1):156-72. doi: 10.1111/j.1469-8137.2009.03061.x. Epub 2009 Oct 23.
Mosses are an understudied group of plants that can potentially confirm or expand principles of plant function described for tracheophytes, from which they diverge strongly in structure. We quantified 35 physiological and morphological traits from cell-, leaf- and canopy-level, for 10 ground-, trunk- and branch-dwelling Hawaiian species. We hypothesized that trait values would reflect the distinctive growth form and slow growth of mosses, but also that trait correlations would be analogous to those of tracheophytes. The moss species had low leaf mass per area and low gas exchange rate. Unlike for tracheophytes, light-saturated photosynthetic rate per mass (A(mass)) did not correlate with habitat irradiance. Other photosynthetic parameters and structural traits were aligned with microhabitat irradiance, driving an inter-correlation of traits including leaf area, cell size, cell wall thickness, and canopy density. In addition, we found a coordination of traits linked with structural allocation, including costa size, canopy height and A(mass). Across species, A(mass) and nitrogen concentration correlated negatively with canopy mass per area, analogous to linkages found for the 'leaf economic spectrum', with canopy mass per area replacing leaf mass per area. Despite divergence of mosses and tracheophytes in leaf size and function, analogous trait coordination has arisen during ecological differentiation.
藓类植物是一组研究不足的植物类群，它们有可能证实或扩展已为维管植物（它们在结构上与维管植物有很大的不同）描述的植物功能原则。我们从细胞、叶片和冠层水平量化了 10 种分布于地面、树干和树枝上的夏威夷藓类植物的 35 种生理和形态特征。我们假设这些特征值将反映藓类植物独特的生长形式和缓慢的生长速度，但特征相关性也将类似于维管植物。这些藓类植物的叶片比叶面积和气体交换率都较低。与维管植物不同的是，每质量饱和的光合速率（A(mass)）与栖息地辐照度无关。其他光合参数和结构特征与微生境辐照度相吻合，驱动包括叶面积、细胞大小、细胞壁厚度和冠层密度在内的特征相互关联。此外，我们发现与结构分配有关的特征之间存在协调，包括中肋大小、冠层高度和 A(mass)。在整个物种中，A(mass)和氮浓度与冠层每面积质量呈负相关，类似于为“叶片经济谱”发现的联系，用冠层每面积质量替代叶比叶面积。尽管藓类植物和维管植物在叶片大小和功能上存在差异，但在生态分化过程中，类似的特征协调已经出现。
