The river valleys in Southwest China are characterized by a dry–hot climate and host the valley-type savannas, which are dominated by deciduous woody species with canopy height of 4–6 m. However, little is known about the ecological adaptation of plants from these Chinese savannas.

　　 Dr. Zhang Jiaolin and his colleagues of Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden (XTBG) evaluated functional leaf traits for 33 woody species from a savanna of the Yuan River (23°41′N, 101°59′E, altitude 770 m).They hypothesized that Chinese savanna species have productive leaf traits because of their deciduous leaf habit and relatively fertile soil conditions of their habitat.

To test the hypothesis, they selected 26 anatomical, morphological, physiological, and chemical traits that are important for the carbon, water and nutrient economy of plants, and compared them with the literature data of other tropical tree species and a global dataset.

They found that Chinese savanna specie had (1) higher photosynthetic capacity compared to other tropical woody savanna species, (2) higher photosynthetic capacity and photosynthetic nutrient use efficiencies compared to a global dataset, and (3) are situated at the productive, right side of the global leaf economics spectrum.

 Their study concluded that Chinese savanna species are adapted to the stressful hot- and seasonally dry valley habitat, by having productive leaves. High leaf productivity is brought about by a drought avoidance strategy, in combination with thin and dense leaves with high leaf nutrient concentrations, high nutrient- and intrinsic water use efficiency, and high photosynthetic capacity.

The study entitled “Productive leaf functional traits of Chinese savanna species” has been published in Plant Ecology, 213 (9):1449-1460, DOI: 10.1007/s11258-012-0103-8