Aquatic plant adaptive strategies

Hydrophytes exhibit a wide range of growth forms, denoting variability in adaptive strategies. Pierce et al. measure morpho-functional leaf traits for 61 species from 47 water bodies and compare them against the full leaf economics spectrum and leaf size range of terrestrial herbs, and between hydrophyte growth forms. Their findings support the hypothesis that hydrophyte adaptive strategy variation reflects fundamental trade-offs in economics and size that govern all plants, and that hydrophyte adaptive strategies can be directly compared with terrestrial species by combining leaf economics and size traits.