Ecological significance of marcescence in Himalayan plants: Why is standing dead phytomass more important in demanding, resource-limited environments?

Understanding mechanisms allowing plants to thrive in challenging conditions is critical for predicting their responses to global environmental change. An often overlooked ecological adaptation is marcescence, where leaves and stems are retained beyond their typical shedding time, with implications for nutrient recycling and carbon sequestration. Marcescence may be common in plants with conservative resource-use strategies, especially in environments with limited resources and marked seasonality, such as deserts and alpine regions. However, the extent to which marcescence occurs in different taxa across different habitats and its relationship to seasonality and plant functioning as reflected in ecophysiological traits remains understudied.
We studied 600 individuals across 40 Himalayan herb species found in desert, steppe, alpine, and subnival habitats, spanning 3000 to 5400 m elevation. Marcescence was observed in 37 out of 40 species evaluated, with 57% of the sampled individuals dis..., This study focused on plant specimens collected from the Ladakh region in the northwest Himalayas of India, covering a vast area of about 80,000 square kilometers with a wide elevational range of vascular plants, ranging from 2650 to 6150 meters above sea level., , # Title of Dataset:

Ecological significance of marcescence in Himalayan plants: Why is standing dead phytomass more important in demanding, resource-limited environments?
Data on dead phytomass and plant traits of 40 Himalayan herb species collected in desert, steppe, alpine, and subnival habitats, spanning 3000 to 5400 m elevation.

## Description of the Data and file structure

Data include information for 601 individual plants (the list Individuals) on variables (their z-scores with zero mean and unit variance) for total plant biomass (totBio), total aboveground biomass (totAGB), organ-specific biomass in main plant organs (Roots.live, Leaves.live, Leaf.dead Stems.dead, Stems.live, REF - reproductive parts), the root (RDMC), rhizome (RhDMC), stem (SDMC) and leaf (LDMC) dry matter contents (DMC, dry mass per unit water-saturated fresh mass), and the proportion of marcescent leaves (RatioLeaves) and stems (RatioStems) in total aboveground plant biomass, collected at four different hab...