World-wide, forests are experiencing drought-induced mortality. However, physiological adaptation to drought is highly variable, which may lead to differential mortality patterns and alter community structure. In this study, saplings of four common tree species (Ormosia pinnata, Dalbergia odorifera...

Background and Aims: Allometric scaling between stomata and xylem for terrestrial woody plants is a widely observed pattern that may be constrained by water transport. Floating-leaved plants, a particular life form of aquatic plants, have leaves in direct contact with both air and water and a...

Objective: Water and fertilizer are two key factors to promote plant growth, thus, it is important to study their coupling effects on growth and nutrient status of Catalpa bungei seedlings. Method: The pot experiment with Catalpa bungei seedlings in three different water levels (30%, 50% and 70%...

Maintaining the activity and function of the shallow root system of plants is essential for withstanding drought stress, but the associated mechanism is poorly understood. By investigating sap flow in 14 lateral roots (LRs) randomly selected from trees of a Chinese white poplar (Populus tomentosa)...

The effects of whole soil biotic communities on plants is a result of positive and negative interactions from a complex suite of mutualists and pathogens. However, few experiments have evaluated the composite effects of whole soil biotic communities on plant growth and disease resistance. We...

Tree improvement programs often focus on improving productivity-related traits; however, under present climate change scenarios, climate change-related (adaptive) traits should also be incorporated into such programs. Therefore, quantifying the genetic variation and correlations among productivity...

Understanding the long-term variations of stand water balance and carbon stocks under different water inputs is crucial for sustainable forest management under climate change. However, due to the lack of in-situ data, how forest plantations respond to variation in water inputs during stand...

Irrigation is essential for sustaining the productivity of plantation forests in arid, semi-arid, and seasonal drought regions. Current irrigation management is commonly scheduled based on time or soil water status, which often fails to capture plant physiological demand. Here we report on the...

Aims: The purpose of this study was to investigate the drought response mechanisms that underlie carbon allocation and carbon demand in roots. Methods: The correlations between root traits and the amount of carbon (C) allocated to different orders of roots were tested using ¹³C pulse labeling. The...

Beilschmiedia weii, a new species of Lauraceae from Dayaoshan Mountain of Guangxi, China, is described and illustrated. It is morphologically most similar to B. wangii and B. rufohirtella in having ferruginous pubescent terminal buds, branchlets, abaxial leaf blades, panicles and fruiting pedicels, ...