Figure 4.

(A) Relations (all P < 0.001) between relative growth rate of young plants and their SLA fitted by type I regression (of log Y = a + b∗log X) for species in three data sets [a literature data set of 26 woody and herbaceous species, a 24-species herbaceous data set (14), and a 9-tree species data set (19)]. log₁₀ (Y) = 1.05 + 1.22∗log₁₀ (SLA), r² = 0.67, log₁₀ (Y) = −0.73 + 1.18∗log₁₀ (SLA), r² = 0.66, and log₁₀ (Y) = −0.92 + 1.16∗log₁₀ (SLA), r² = 0.77, respectively, for the three data sets. (B) Relations (P < 0.0001) between ecosystem production efficiency (annual aboveground net primary production/live canopy foliage dry mass) and mean canopy SLA fitted by regression (of log Y = a + b∗log X) for species in two data sets [a literature data set of 32 forest stands from a broad region (22) and a separate 48-forest stand data set from central North America (40)]. log₁₀ (Y) = 2.33 + 1.31∗log₁₀ (SLA), r² = 0.60, n = 32; log₁₀ (Y) = −1.95 + 1.11∗log₁₀ (SLA), r² = 0.76, n = 48, respectively.