Association of leaf silicon content with chronic wind exposure across and within herbaceous plant species

Aim: High foliar silicon (henceforth Si) concentration protects plant tissues against herbivory but protection against several abiotic stressors has been proposed too, though the adaptive significance of these functions is still being debated. We aimed to explore the potential relationships between foliar Si content and chronic wind exposure across a large scale and multiple species, and analyze an overlooked alternative or complementary function of silicon in leaves: mechanical protection against wind.

Location: Mainland China.

Time period: From July to September during 2012–2014.

Major taxa studied: 282 vascular plant species in predominantly herbaceous communities.

Methods: We compiled a dataset for leaf silicon concentration [Si] across 27 sites and 153 herbaceous plots comprising the major climate zones of China. We hypothesized that evolutionary lineages that generally have high [Si] should show positive relationships between leaf [Si] and mean annual wind speed.

Re...