Figure 1.
Locations of the sampling sites along the transect across the temperate grasslands of northern China.
Table 1.
Semi-variogram test of spatial autocorrelation of mean annual temperature (MAT) and mean annual precipitation (MAP) among sampling sites across a 2500-km long transect in northern China.
Figure 2.
Root/shoot ratios (mean ±1 SE) of four grasses genera (Stipa, Cleistogenes, Agropyron, and Leymus).
Bars with dissimilar letters denote signiffcant difference (p<0.01).
Table 2.
Statistics of 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.
Table 3.
Effects of MAT and MAP on root/shoot ratios of four dominant genera (Stipa, Cleistogenes, Agropyron, and Leymus) across a 2500-km long transect in northern China’s temperature grassland.
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.
Figure 3.
Allometric relationship between root biomass and shoot biomass.
Stipa spp. (A), Cleistogenes spp. (B), Agropyron spp. (C), and Leymus spp. (D). Red lines are the standardized major axis regression curves (for a summary of regression statistics, see Table 5). Green lines are isometric lines with slope equal to 1 and y-intercept equal to that of the corresponding red lines.
Table 5.
Linear regression between above- and below-ground biomass for Stipa spp., Cleistogenes spp., Agropyron spp., and Leymus spp. using a standardized major axis (SMA) method.
Table 6.
Effects of PEI and DI on root/shoot ratios of four dominant genera (Stipa, Cleistogenes, Agropyron, and Leymus) across a 2500-km long transect in northern China’s temperature grassland.