Journal
FUNCTIONAL ECOLOGY
Volume 16, Issue 5, Pages 633-639Publisher
WILEY
DOI: 10.1046/j.1365-2435.2002.00661.x
Keywords
foraging scale; leaf size; light; plant metabolism
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1. It has been suggested that leaf size may represent a foraging scale, with smaller-leaved species exploiting and requiring higher resource concentrations that are available in smaller patches. 2. Among 26 shrub species from a sclerophyll woodland community in New South Wales, Australia, species with smaller leaves tended to occur in better light environments, after controlling for height. The dark respiration rates of small-leaved species tended to exceed those of larger-leaved species. 3. However, the higher-light environments where smaller-leaved species tended to occur had a patch scale larger than whole plants. There would not have been any foraging-scale impediment to large-leaved species occupying these higher-light patches. An alternative explanation for small-leaved species being more successful in higher-light patches, in this vegetation with moderate shading, might be that they were less prone to leaf overheating. 4. Such relationships of leaf size to light across species at a given height may be important contributors to the wide spread of leaf sizes among species within a vegetation type, along with patterns down the light profile of the canopy, and effects associated with architecture and ramification strategy.
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