Fig. 3: Associations of leaf longevity (LL) with plant functional traits, photosynthesis, diversity, and resistance across pantropical moist forests.

A Average values of seven normalized leaf functional traits (purple) and nine normalized GPP data (black) in three leaf longevity cohorts (short: LL < 1.5 yrs, blue; moderate: 1.5 yrs <LL < 2.1 yrs, gray; long: LL > 2.1 yrs, orange). n represents the number of datasets. Refer to Supplementary Figs. S8, S9 for the scatters between functional traits and GPP data and leaf longevity. The data of seven leaf functional traits (leaf area (cm²), thickness (mm), fresh mass (g), dry mass (g), nitrogen (N, %), phosphorus (P, %), and water contents (%)) were provided by ref. ¹⁰⁴. The GPP data were provided by multiple satellite-based and model-estimated GPP products (see Ecological implications of leaf longevity in “Methods”): the MODIS-derived GPP¹⁰⁸, GOSIF-derived GPP⁶⁶, the RTSIF-derived GPP¹⁰⁹, FLUXCOM GPP¹¹⁰, the revised EC-LUE model GPP¹¹¹, two-leaf light use efficiency (TL-LUE) model GPP¹¹², the vegetation photosynthesis model (VPM) GPP¹¹³ and near-infrared reflectance of vegetation (NIRv) GPP¹¹⁴. B Differences in field-observed V_c,max25 and T_leaf under the same T_air conditions among the three leaf longevity cohorts (short: LL < 1.5 yrs, blue; moderate: 1.5 yrs <LL < 2.1 yrs, green; long: LL > 2.1 yrs, yellow) (n = 1280). The V_c,max25 and T_leaf data were based on in situ measurements¹⁷. C Changes of species evenness with leaf longevity across pantropical moist forests (n = 757). The color bar indicates the magnitude of leaf nitrogen content (gray means none value). The symbol size indicates the photosynthetic capacity of plants (GPP). The in situ plant diversity data are provided by ref. ⁴⁴ (Supplementary Fig. S10). D Changes of resistance with leaf longevity across pantropical moist forests (n = 12448). Resistance was calculated by VOD using Eq. 5 (see Impacts of LL on resistance in Methods). The mean values for resistance across different background leaf longevity bins (bin = 0.3 yrs, mean ± s.e). E PLS-SEM analysis in depicting influences of changes in leaf longevity impact on functional traits, plant photosynthesis, plant diversity, and ecosystem resistance to disturbance in pantropical moist forests in short and long leaf longevity, respectively. Asterisks indicate significance level (two-sided Student’s t test): *P < 0.05, **P < 0.01, ***P < 0.001. The light-colored lines represent insignificance (P > 0.05). The Goodness of Fit (GoF) is an indicator for assessing the overall predictive performance of the PLS-SEM. The images of tree elements in Panel (E) are from Integration and Application Network (ian.umces.edu/media-library), with image colors being modified. Source data are provided as a Source Data file.