ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Plant Sci.
Sec. Functional Plant Ecology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpls.2025.1555607
This article is part of the Research TopicExploring Wood Structure and Tree-Ring Dynamics in Ecological ResearchView all 5 articles
Does climatic variation drive the adjustment of functional traits? An assessment of Tropical Montane Cloud Forest tree species
Provisionally accepted
Agustina Rosa Andres-Hernández1
Ernesto Chanes Rodríguez-Ramírez2*- 1Facultad de Ciencias Biológicas, Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, Puebla, Puebla, Mexico
- 2Continental University, Huancayo, Peru
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Tropical montane cloud forests (TMCF) support a wide variety of specialized plant species that require high levels of atmospheric humidity and can be described as fog immersion obligates, with rich assemblages of relict species. The study of anatomical and leaf morphological traits in TMCF woody angiosperm species can provide insights into their environmental adaptation or acclimation strategies to changes in fog immersion. To understand the growth, development, and acclimation among 10 TMCF tree species in the Medio Monte Natural Protected Area in central-eastern Mexico, we hypothesized that TMCF tree species exhibit different wood anatomical and leaf morphological strategies in response to hydric stress. We analyzed interspecific differences and interpreted the patterns in wood anatomical and leaf morphological traits in relation to climatic factors of each species. The results showed that there were interspecific differences in wood and leaf traits of TMCF tree species. A strong influence of mean maximum temperature, monthly precipitation, and evapotranspiration was seen on specific wood anatomical traits such as vessel density, hydraulic diameter, vulnerability index, vessel grouping, solitary vessel index, fiber length, length of uniseriate rays, and width of rays. Secondly, mean maximum temperature, mean minimum temperature, and evapotranspiration influenced leave anatomical traits, such as shape, leaf arrangement, leaf organization, lamina length, area of leaf size classes, apex angle, apex shape, base angle, number of basal veins, vein density, agrophic veins, and number of orders of teeth. This study makes an important contribution to our understanding of the variability in wood anatomical and leaf morphological traits among TMCF tree species and their ecological strategies that determine how plants respond to climatic factors and manage water loss.
Keywords: climate variability, Drought stress, endangered species acclimation, environmental adaptation, Wood anatomy, leaf morphological traits
Received: 05 Jan 2025; Accepted: 20 May 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Andres-Hernández and Rodríguez-Ramírez. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Ernesto Chanes Rodríguez-Ramírez, Continental University, Huancayo, Peru
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