Table 3.

Mean LERs (number of leaves produced per terminal meristem per period of 14 d) of seedlings of four tropical tree species grown under different shading intensities (standard errors are given in parentheses)

	Full sunlight‡	45 % sunlight	12 % sunlight	P value (Friedman ANOVA)	Plasticity (%)
Lansium	–	1·57 (1·53)	1·09 (1·12)	<0·02	36
Durio	–	0·85 (0·74)	0·32 (0·38)	<0·001	97
Hevea	4·17 (2·65)	5·68 (4·03)	3·29 (3·19)	<0·001	55
Alstonia – branch*	2·38 (1·54)	2·24 (1·54)	2·24 (1·40)	<0·59	6
Alstonia – trunk†	13·02 (1·26)	10·64 (1·12)	9·38 (1·40)	<0·245§	33

Note: Plasticity is defined as the range of variation of LER observed across light treatments relative to the mean LER over all light treatments.

^*First tier of horizontal branches.

^†First renewal axis of main shoot, before any pruning occurred (dates of growth periods differ for different plants).

^‡No data presented for Lansium and Durio, due to high mortality.

^§Kruskal–Wallis test.