Table 4. Path coefficients between climate factors (MAT and MAP) and plant root/shoot ratios of four dominant genera (Stipa, Cleistogenes, Agropyron, and Leymus) across a 2500-km long transect in northern China’s temperature grassland.

Genus		R	Direct path	Indirect path coefficient
			coefficient	Via MAP	Via MAT
Stipa	MAP–R/S	−0.829	−0.577		−0.252
	MAT–R/S	0.794	0.285	0.509
Cleistogenes	MAP–R/S	−0.630	−0.231		−0.399
	MAT–R/S	0.678	0.468	0.210
Agropyron	MAP–R/S	−0.470	−0.417		−0.053
	MAT–R/S	0.406	0.064	0.342
Leymus	MAP–R/S	−0.477	−0.413		−0.064
	MAT–R/S	0.336	0.210	0.126

MAT, mean annual temperature; MAP, mean annual precipitation; R/S, root/shoot ratio.

Indirect path coefficient means the indirect dependency of root/shoot ratios on certain climate factor and R is the correlation coefficient between the climate factors and the root/shoot ratios.