Congratulations to Dr. María Natalia Umaña for publishing "From seedlings to adults: Linking survival and leaf functional traits over ontogeny" in Ecology.
Abstract: As long-lived tropical trees grow into the multi-layered canopy and face different environmental conditions, the relationships between leaf traits and whole-plant survival can vary over ontogeny. We tested the strength and direction of the relationships between leaf traits and long-term survival data across life stages for woody species from a subtropical forest in Puerto Rico. Trait–survival relationships were largely consistent across ontogeny with conservative traits leading to higher survival rates. The stage-specific relationship R2 increased by up to one order of magnitude compared to studies not considering ontogenetic trait variations. Stage-specific traits were significant predictors of their corresponding stage-specific survival: Seedlings traits were better predictors of seedling survival than adult traits, and adult traits were better predictors of maximum adult survival than seedling traits. Our results suggest that stage-specific leaf traits reflect different strategies over ontogeny and can substantially improve predictability of survival models in tropical forests.
