Community-weighted plant foliar nutrient analysis (Nothofagaceae)

Knowledge graph centered on Community-weighted plant foliar nutrient analysis (Nothofagaceae) with 17 nodes and 36 connections. Top connected: Elevation alters ecosystem properties across tempe, Bacteria, elevational gradients, species diversity, Holshof & Swenson trait sampling protocol.

Method synopsis

Collection and analysis of foliar nitrogen and phosphorus from dominant tree and ground-layer plant species, with community-weighted averages calculated based on species cover to represent plot-level nutrient status.

Synthesized from method descriptions across 1 paper using this protocol.

Procedure from a recent peer-reviewed implementation

Steps below were extracted from the most recent peer-reviewed implementation of this protocol in the corpus — Elevation alters ecosystem properties across temperate treelines globally (2017), Nature. Implementations in other papers (listed below) may differ.

1. Collect plant foliar samples
   Plant material nitrogen and phosphorus concentrations were measured from healthy green leaves collected from all tree species and the most abundant ground-level plant species in each plot over five fine roots in each plot. For trees, five fine roots from each plot were taken from the dominant taxa and only ground-layer plants above the treeline and only trees below treeline. This includes trees plus ground-layer plants below the treeline and only ground-layer plants above treeline.
   Quantities: Up to ten healthy individuals of each species using a pole-pruner at heights of 5 m. For ground-layer foliar nitrogen and phosphorus concentrations measured on green leaves collected from up to ten healthy individuals of the most abundant species in each plot and were weighted foliar nitrogen and phosphorus in ground community-weighted basisDuration: During field sampling periods (July 2013-August 2014 and December 2013-January 2015)Conditions: Plants were in full leaf yet not senescing
   Equipment: pole-pruner
2. Calculate community-weighted plant nutrients
   For each country, the total variation in the datasets for N, P, and N:P ratios was related to elevational changes using decomposition using species turnover and across species variation components using a standard approach. Plant foliar nutrients were weighted by cover using equation: weighted plot = average = ∑(pi × [nutrient]i) where pi is the relative cover of species i in the plot and [nutrient] is the concentration of N, P, or the ratio of N to P of species i.
   Quantities: Cover-weighted averages calculated for all plotsDuration: Post-field data processing Based on relative species cover data

Typical Equipment

• pole-pruner

Output Measurements

• foliar nitrogen concentration
• foliar phosphorus concentration
• community-weighted N:P ratios

Papers Using This Protocol (1)

Species Studied With This Protocol