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Premise of the study: Leaves are the sites of greatest water stress in trees and a key means of acclimation to the environment. We considered phenotypic plasticity of Pseudotsuga menziesii leaves in their ecological context, exploring responsiveness to natural gradients in water stress (indicated by sample height) and light availability (measured from hemispherical photos) to understand how leaf structure is controlled by abiotic factors in tall tree crowns. Methods: After measuring anatomy, morphology, and carbon isotope composition (δ13C) of leaves throughout crowns of P. menziesii >90 m tall, we compared structural plasticity of leaves among the three tallest conifer species using equivalent data from past work on Sequoia sempervirens and Picea sitchensis. Key results: Leaf mass per projected area (LMA) and δ13C increased and mesoporosity (airspace/area) decreased along the water‐stress gradient, while light did not play a detectable role in leaf development. Overall, leaves of P. menziesii were far less phenotypically responsive to within‐crown abiotic gradients than either P. sitchensis, whose leaves responded strongly to light availability, or S. sempervirens, whose leaves responded equally strongly to water stress. Conclusions: P. menziesii maintain remarkably consistent leaf structure despite pronounced vertical gradients in abiotic factors. Contrasting patterns of leaf structural plasticity underlie divergent ecological strategies of the three tallest conifer species, which coexist in Californian rainforests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

PREMISE OF THE STUDY: Leaves respond to environmental signals and acclimate to local conditions until their ecological limits are reached. Understanding the relationships between anatomical variation in leaves and the availability of water and light improves our ab ility to predict ecosystem-level impacts of foliar response to climate change, as it expands our knowledge of tree physiology. METHODS: We examined foliar anatomy and morphology of the largest plant species, Sequoiadendror giganteum, from leafy shoot samples collected th roughout crowns of trees up to 95 m tall and assessed the functionality of with in-crown variation with a novel drought/recovery experiment. KEY RESULTS: We found phenotypic variation in response to water availability in 13 anatomical traits of Sequoiadendron leaves. Shoot expansion was constrained by the hydrostatic gradient of maximum water potential, while functional traits supporting succulence and toughness were associated with sites of peak hydraulic limitation. Water-stress tolerance in experimental shoots increased dramatically with height. CONCLUSION: We propose a heat-sink function for transfusion tissue and uncover a suite of traits suggesting rapid hydraulic throughput and flexibility in water-stress tolerance investments as strategies that help this montane species reach such enormous size. Responses to water stress alter the amount of carbon stored in foliage and the rate of the eventual release of carbon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examined changes in branch hydraulic, leaf structure and gas exchange properties in coast redwood ( Sequoia sempervirens) and giant sequoia ( Sequoiadendron giganteum) trees of different sizes. Leaf-specific hydraulic conductivity ( kL) increased with height in S. sempervirens but not in S. giganteum, while xylem cavitation resistance increased with height in both species. Despite hydraulic adjustments, leaf mass per unit area (LMA) and leaf carbon isotope ratios ( δ13C) increased, and maximum mass-based stomatal conductance ( gmass) and photosynthesis ( Amass) decreased with height in both species. As a result, both Amass and gmass were negatively correlated with branch hydraulic properties in S. sempervirens and uncorrelated in S. giganteum. In addition, Amass and gmass were negatively correlated with LMA in both species, which we attributed to the effects of decreasing leaf internal CO2 conductance ( gi). Species-level differences in wood density, LMA and area-based gas exchange capacity constrained other structural and physiological properties, with S. sempervirens exhibiting increased branch water transport efficiency and S. giganteum exhibiting increased leaf-level water-use efficiency with increasing height. Our results reveal different adaptive strategies for the two redwoods that help them compensate for constraints associated with growing taller, and reflect contrasting environmental conditions each species faces in its native habitat. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]