Stem, branch and leaf biomass-density relationships in forest communities

Wei-Ping Zhang, Jia Xin, E. Charles Morris, Yan-Yuan Bai, Gen-Xuan Wang

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    39 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    Defining and quantifying biomass–density relationships in dense plant stands has been a long-standing issue in both theoretical and empirical studies. Most existing/traditional studies focus on whole plant individuals, without considering different plant components (e.g., stem, branch and leaf). However, the analysis of biomass–density relationships for different plant parts is linked to those for whole plants, and thus important for understanding plant strategies for utilizing resources and community dynamics. In our study, we investigated standing stem (M S), branch (M B) and leaf (M L) biomass–density relationships, across a range of forest communities in China. The results showed that there was no constant predicted value (e.g., −1/2 or −1/3 for M S; −1/2, −1/3 or 0 for M B and M L) that can describe all the relationships, and that the scaling exponents for stem, branch and leaf biomass varied across different forest types. In particular, standing leaf biomass (leaf biomass per unit area) was not constant in these forest communities. Furthermore, stem biomass–density lines were steeper than corresponding branch and leaf lines across most of these forest communities.
    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)819-825
    Number of pages7
    JournalEcological Research
    Volume27
    Issue number4
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 2012

    Keywords

    • boundary line
    • branch biomass
    • forest communities
    • leaf biomass
    • stem biomass

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