M. LUKE McCORMACK results 33
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Cover Image, Volume 28, Issue 9NARA Subscribed
Delicate Trade‐Offs: Nonlinear Multiple Biotic Constraints on Absorptive Fine Root Lifespan Across TreesNARA Subscribed
Root lifespan is crucial for predicting carbon and nutrient cycling. While economic theories suggest root construction cost primarily determines root lifespan, the role of extrinsic biotic factors remains unexplored. We analysed 61,221 images from a subtropical common garden to quantify 21 factors influencing root lifespan across 16 tree species and developed a comparable global absorptive root lifespan dataset across biomes....
Tropical ecosystems contain the world's largest biodiversity of vascular plants. Yet, our understanding of tropical functional diversity and its contribution to global diversity patterns is constrained by data availability. This discrepancy underscores an urgent need to bridge data gaps by incorporating comprehensive tropical root data into global datasets. Here, we provide a database of tropical root characteristics. This new...
Projecting the dynamics and functioning of the biosphere requires a holistic consideration of whole‐ecosystem processes. However, biases toward leaf, canopy, and soil modeling since the 1970s have constantly left fine‐root systems being rudimentarily treated. As accelerated empirical advances in the last two decades establish clearly functional differentiation conferred by the hierarchical structure of fine‐root orders and ass...
Aim After environmental disasters, species with large population losses may need urgent protection to prevent extinction and support recovery. Following the 2019–2020 Australian megafires, we estimated population losses and recovery in fire‐affected fauna, to inform conservation status assessments and management. Location Temperate and subtropical Australia. Time period 2019–2030 and beyond. Major taxa Australian terrestrial a...
Prolonging survival in good health is a fundamental societal goal. However, the leading determinants of disability-free survival in healthy older people have not been well established. Data from ASPREE, a bi-national placebo-controlled trial of aspirin with 4.7 years median follow-up, was analysed. At enrolment, participants were healthy and without prior cardiovascular events, dementia or persistent physical disability. Disab...
Harsh environmental conditions affect both leaf structure and root traits. However, shoot growth in high‐latitude systems is predominately under photoperiod control while root growth may occur for as long as thermal conditions are favorable. The different sensitivities of these organs may alter functional relationships above‐ and belowground along environmental gradients. We examined the relationship between absorptive root an...
Global root traits (GRooT) databaseNARA Subscribed
Motivation Trait data are fundamental to the quantitative description of plant form and function. Although root traits capture key dimensions related to plant responses to changing environmental conditions and effects on ecosystem processes, they have rarely been included in large‐scale comparative studies and global models. For instance, root traits remain absent from nearly all studies that define the global spectrum of plan...
TRY plant trait database – enhanced coverage and open accessNARA Subscribed
Plant traits—the morphological, anatomical, physiological, biochemical and phenological characteristics of plants—determine how plants respond to environmental factors, affect other trophic levels, and influence ecosystem properties and their benefits and detriments to people. Plant trait data thus represent the basis for a vast area of research spanning from evolutionary biology, community and functional ecology, to biodivers...
How are nitrogen availability, fine‐root mass, and nitrogen uptake related empirically? Implications for models and theoryNARA Subscribed
Understanding the effects of global change in terrestrial communities requires an understanding of how limiting resources interact with plant traits to affect productivity. Here, we focus on nitrogen and ask whether plant community nitrogen uptake rate is determined (a) by nitrogen availability alone or (b) by the product of nitrogen availability and fine‐root mass. Surprisingly, this is not empirically resolved. We performed...
Despite the importance of fine roots for the acquisition of soil resources such as nitrogen and water, the study of linkages between traits and both population and community dynamics remains focused on aboveground traits. We address this gap by investigating associations between belowground traits and metrics of species dynamics. Our analysis included 85 species from a long‐term data set on the transition from old field to for...
Aim Rising air temperature and changing precipitation patterns already strongly influence forest ecosystems, yet large‐scale patterns of belowground root trait variation and their underlying drivers are poorly understood. Here, we investigated general patterns of root tip adjustments within fine‐root systems and the potential ecological implications of these patterns. Location Global. Methods We synthesize key fine‐root traits...
Plant functional traits may be altered as plants adapt to various environmental constraints. Cold, low fertility growing conditions are often associated with root adjustments to increase acquisition of limiting nutrient resources, but they may also result in construction of roots with reduced uptake potential but higher tissue persistence. It is ultimately unclear whether plants produce fine roots of different structure in res...
The roots of the majority of tree species are associated with either arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) or ectomycorrhizal (EM) fungi. The absorptive roots of tree species also vary widely in their diameter. The linkages between root thickness, mycorrhiza type and nutrient foraging are poorly understood. We conducted a large root ingrowth experiment in the field to investigate how absorptive roots of varying thickness and their assoc...