Authors
Wanli Zhao, Haoyu Zhang, Peili Fu
Published in
Annals of botany. Aug 17, 2026. Epub Aug 17, 2026.
Abstract
The classic hypothesis that compound leaves are associated with drought has largely treated all woody plants as a single functional group, overlooking potential ecological divergence among shrubs, trees, and lianas.
Using 2,727 species across 63 forest plots in China, we quantified compound-leaf proportion within shrubs, trees, and lianas, respectively, and assessed their climatic associations, and employed PLS-SEM to disentangle direct and indirect pathways of drought influence.
Compound-leaf distribution differed markedly among life forms. The shrub compound-leaf proportion showed strong positive correlations with drought index and negative correlations with mean annual precipitation (MAP) and temperature (MAT). Trees exhibited a weak negative correlation with MAP and no significant relationship with MAT or drought index. while lianas displayed no climatic relationships-their proportion instead varying geographically. Structural equation modeling revealed that drought is associated with woody compound-leaf proportion primarily through indirect pathways: increasing shrub proportion (which carries high compound-leaf proportion) while reducing tree proportion, together with direct positive effects on compound-leaf proportion within shrubs and trees.
Our findings demonstrate that compound leaf-drought relationships are life-form-specific, challenging the view of compound leaves as a universal drought-associated trait. Integrating life-form information into ecological models is essential for accurately predicting vegetation responses to climate change.
PMID:
42605532
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 17 Aug 2026.
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