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1. Perennial plants often endure chronic loss of leaf area due to recurrent physical damage, herbivory and, for species used as non-timber forest products, due to leaf harvesting. However, little is known about functional and demographic resilience (extent and speed of recovery) of plants subjected to varying levels of chronic defoliation. 2. We used a dioecious, understorey palm (Chamaedorea elegans) to evaluate temporal trajectories and rates of recovery of leaf functional traits and vital rates (survival, growth and reproduction) after being subjected to experimental chronic defoliation regimes. 3. Pristine populations of mature C. elegans, categorized by gender (male and female), were subjected to five defoliation levels (0%, 33%, 50%, 66% or 100% of newly produced leaves) every 6 months over a period of 3 years (1997–2000). To evaluate recovery from defoliation, surviving palms were monitored for 3 years after the cessation of the defoliation treatment (2000–2003). We recorded leaf functional traits (leaf persistence, leaf production rate, leaf size and leaf area) and annual rates of mortality, growth and reproduction. 4. Cumulative effects of chronic defoliation concomitantly reduced leaf traits, survival, growth and reproduction, and this effect was stronger in female than in male palms, independent of plant size. Recovery from defoliation was faster in males than in females, but proceeded gradually overall. Survival increased first, followed by growth, while reproductive traits showed the slowest recovery rate. Recovery was independent of plant size. Notably, 3 years after defoliation treatment, the standing leaf area and probability of reproduction had not recovered to pre-defoliation levels. Additionally, we found that the occurrence of a severe drought in the first year (2000) after defoliation ceased led to decreased survival, growth and reproduction and the ability of plants to recover from defoliation. 5. Synthesis. Chronic defoliation reduces fitness components of C. elegans palms differentially between genders. Recovery is gradual and is slower and less complete in females compared with males. The lower level of resilience to chronic defoliation shown by female plants may have profound consequences for the dynamics and genetic variability of populations of tropical understorey plants undergoing prolonged defoliation. Such effects may be aggravated by severe drought episodes that are expected to increase in frequency according to global climate change predictions.

Plant traits – the morphological, anatomical, physiological, biochemical and phenological characteristics of plants and their organs – determine how primary producers respond to environmental factors, affect other trophic levels, influence ecosystem processes and services and provide a link from species richness to ecosystem functional diversity. Trait data thus represent the raw material for a wide range of research from evolutionary biology, community and functional ecology to biogeography. Here we present the global database initiative named TRY, which has united a wide range of the plant trait research community worldwide and gained an unprecedented buy-in of trait data: so far 93 trait databases have been contributed. The data repository currently contains almost three million trait entries for 69 000 out of the world's 300 000 plant species, with a focus on 52 groups of traits characterizing the vegetative and regeneration stages of the plant life cycle, including growth, dispersal, establishment and persistence. A first data analysis shows that most plant traits are approximately log-normally distributed, with widely differing ranges of variation across traits. Most trait variation is between species (interspecific), but significant intraspecific variation is also documented, up to 40% of the overall variation. Plant functional types (PFTs), as commonly used in vegetation models, capture a substantial fraction of the observed variation – but for several traits most variation occurs within PFTs, up to 75% of the overall variation. In the context of vegetation models these traits would better be represented by state variables rather than fixed parameter values. The improved availability of plant trait data in the unified global database is expected to support a paradigm shift from species to trait-based ecology, offer new opportunities for synthetic plant trait research and enable a more realistic and empirically grounded representation of terrestrial vegetation in Earth system models.

Plant traits - the morphological, anatomical, physiological, biochemical and phenological characteristics of plants and their organs - determine how primary producers respond to environmental factors, affect other trophic levels, influence ecosystem processes and services and provide a link from species richness to ecosystem functional diversity. Trait data thus represent the raw material for a wide range of research from evolutionary biology, community and functional ecology to biogeography. Here we present the global database initiative named TRY, which has united a wide range of the plant trait research community worldwide and gained an unprecedented buy-in of trait data: so far 93 trait databases have been contributed. The data repository currently contains almost three million trait entries for 69000 out of the world's 300000 plant species, with a focus on 52 groups of traits characterizing the vegetative and regeneration stages of the plant life cycle, including growth, dispersal, establishment and persistence. A first data analysis shows that most plant traits are approximately log-normally distributed, with widely differing ranges of variation across traits. Most trait variation is between species (interspecific), but significant intraspecific variation is also documented, up to 40% of the overall variation. Plant functional types (PFTs), as commonly used in vegetation models, capture a substantial fraction of the observed variation - but for several traits most variation occurs within PFTs, up to 75% of the overall variation. In the context of vegetation models these traits would better be represented by state variables rather than fixed parameter values. The improved availability of plant trait data in the unified global database is expected to support a paradigm shift from species to trait-based ecology, offer new opportunities for synthetic plant trait research and enable a more realistic and empirically grounded representation of terrestrial vegetation in Earth system models. © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Aim The drivers of species assembly, by limiting the possible range of functional trait values, can lead to either convergent or divergent distributions of traits in realized assemblages. Here, to evaluate the strengths of these species assembly drivers, we partition trait variance across global, regional and community scales. We then test the hypothesis that, from global to community scales, the outcome of co-occurring trait convergence and divergence is highly variable across biomes and communities. Location Global: nine biomes ranging from subarctic highland to tropical rain forest. Methods We analysed functional trait diversity at progressively finer spatial scales using a global, balanced, hierarchically structured dataset from 9 biomes, 58 communities and 652 species. Analyses were based on two key leaf traits (foliar nitrogen content and specific leaf area) that are known to drive biogeochemical cycling. Results While 35% of the global variance in these traits was between biomes, only 15% was between communities within biomes and as much as 50% occurred within communities. Despite this relatively high within-community variance in trait values, we found that trait convergence dominated over divergence at both global and regional scales through comparisons of functional trait diversity in regional and community assemblages against random (null) models of species assembly. Main conclusions We demonstrate that the convergence of traits occurring from global to regional assemblages can be twice as strong as that from regional to community assemblages, and argue that large differences in the nature and strength of abiotic and biotic drivers of dominant species assembly can, at least partly, explain the variable outcome of simultaneous trait convergence and divergence across sites. Ultimately, these findings stress the urgent need to extend species assembly research to address those scales where trait variance is the highest, i.e. between biomes and within communities. © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

We have studied the interactive effects of salinity and light on Avicennia germinans mangrove seedlings in greenhouse and field experiments. We hypothesized that net photosynthesis, growth, and survivorship rates should increase more with an increase in light availability for plants growing at low salinity than for those growing at high salinity. This hypothesis was supported by our results for net photosynthesis and growth. Net daily photosynthesis did increase more with increasing light for low-salinity plants than for high-salinity plants. Stomatal conductance, leaf-level transpiration, and internal CO2 concentrations were lower at high than at low salinity.

1. A new method (the iterative approach) is presented by which growth analyses can be conducted on plants that have been subjected to significant losses in biomass and leaf area between harvests. The method is particularly useful to analyse the effects of defoliation on growth and biomass allocation. 2. Values for the following parameters can be estimated: absolute growth rate (g day-1), relative growth rate (RGR, g g-1 day-1), net assimilation rate (NAR, g m-2 day-1), leaf area ratio (LAR, m2 g-1), fraction of newly assimilated mass that is allocated to leaf lamina production (flam, g g-1), and daily fractional change in the average specific leaf area of plants (ρ, day-1). These parameters are determined by means of iterations. We defined a number of growth functions, and the values of NAR, flam and the SLA of newly produced leaves were changed until these functions correctly predicted the measured total plant mass, leaf lamina mass and leaf area at the end of the growth period. This avoids having to assume a constant relationship between leaf area and biomass (as in the 'classical' approach), and it avoids the use of polynomial functions to fit growth data (as in the 'functional' approach) that are unsuitable for fitting data sets exhibiting discontinuities such as abrupt changes in biomass. 3. The method was applied to a greenhouse experiment in which we analysed the effects of sustained defoliation on growth and biomass allocation in a tropical understorey palm, Chamaedorea elegans Mart. 4. We showed that C. elegans plants respond to defoliation with a considerable increase in the allocation of new assimilates to lamina growth (flam) and that, despite the repeated loss of leaf area and associated reductions in LAR, they had RGR values that were similar to those of undamaged plants.

1. Increases in photosynthesis of leaves remaining after defoliation may result from shifts in leaf photosynthetic characteristics or from an improved light penetration in the canopy. However, few studies have tried to estimate the relative contribution of these factors to mitigating the negative effects of defoliation. We present a quantitative framework for such an analysis. 2. In a field and greenhouse experiment, plants of the rain forest understorey palm Chamaedorea elegans were subjected to three levels of defoliation (0, 50 or 66% of leaves removed) and, in the greenhouse, grown at two irradiances (5 or 16% of daylight, 'low light' and 'high light' hereafter). For each plant, leaf photosynthesis and light penetration in the canopy were measured and these data were used to calculate whole-canopy carbon gain. 3. Defoliation significantly increased the light available to the remaining leaves. In the field and in the 'high-light' greenhouse plants, defoliation also resulted in an increase in the light-saturated photosynthesis per unit leaf area (Pmax), although in the 'low-light' plants this was not the case. 4. A sensitivity analysis revealed that in the 'low-light' plants, a proportional increase in leaf Pmax did not result in increased canopy-level carbon gain, while in the 'high-light' and field plants, it did. This suggests that the lack of plasticity in Pmax in response to defoliation, at low light, may be the appropriate pattern to maximize carbon gain. 5. Defoliated plants had 10-18% more average photosynthesis per unit leaf area (Parea) than the control plants, and this increase was mostly the result of an improved light penetration in the canopy. 6. A relatively small fraction (5-30%) of the total estimated loss in canopy carbon gain caused by the removal of leaves was compensated for by an increase in Parea. This suggests that in rain forest understorey plants, an increase in diurnal photosynthesis of remaining leaves has limited potential for mitigating the negative effects of defoliation.