Male And Female Differences In Leaf Functional Traits Of Taxus Cuspidata And Their Dynamic Changes During Growth Period

Leaf functional traits are the expression of plant adaptation to the environment,exploring the trade-offs between different traits and seasonal variations can reveal the survival strategies of plants.The difference of leaf functional traits between the sexes of dioecious endangered plants may lead to gender bias in dioecious plant population,which is not conducive to the maintenance of the population.At present,little attention has been paid to the gender difference and gender bias in leaf functional traits of dioecious endangered plants.In this study,male and female Taxus cuspidate in northeast China of wangqing nature reserve of jilin province were selected as the research object,30 female and 30 male plants were selected in the same habitat,and biomass estimation and field survey sampling were used to explore the gender differences of functional traits between male and female plants,the correlation between traits and the dynamic change characteristics of functional traits were explored from the aspects of biomass and leaf functional traits.The purpose of this study is to provide a reference for the study of adaptation characteristics and sex bias of taxus cuspidate.The results show that:(1)There was no significant difference in the reproductive biomass of female and male taxus cuspis,while there was significant difference in the nutrient biomass(P<0.05).The reproductive biomass of female taxus cuspis increased in the development period and the nutrient biomass decreased with the development period.The nutrient biomass of male plants was on the rise.(2)Different functional traits were significantly influenced by gender,developmental period and gender × developmental period interactions(P<0.05).Most of the indexes of male and female strains have sex differences in different developmental stages.(3)The male and female strains had different functional character combinations and correlations at different development stages;The female taxus chinensis is restricted by N element to a greater extent.The male plants were more restricted by P in flowering and fruit development.During the maturity period,it is limited by N and P elements.(4)The leaf functional traits of the female and male taxus cuspidate were significantly different in different growth and development stages,and the change trends were different,indicating that the distribution of nutrients was different in different growth and development stages of taxus cuspidate.The results showed that there were gender differences in nutrient balance and environmental adaptability between male and female taxus cuspidate in different periods.These results indicate that the functional characteristics of taxus cuspidate leaves in northeast China have shown a certain gender dimorphism,which may be one of the causes of gender bias in male and female populations and related to the endangered species.It is recommended that gender considerations be taken into account in future discussions of their endangered mechanisms.