Fig 1.
Predicted broad trends between plant traits and response to climate.
‘Mechanistic’, relating particularly to specializations for surviving harsh climates, and ‘functional’ traits sensu Broderibb [47], that may optimize growth during other periods, are coloured blue and red respectively. ● identifies the putative position of Olea designated with a orange color.
Fig 2.
The geographical locations of sampling sites across Morocco with contours for Aridity index generated with Open Quantum GIS V. 2.12.3-Lyon software [79].
Site numbers accord with Table 1.
Table 1.
Climatic, geographic and phytoecological characteristics of sites sampled.
Table 2.
Leaf traits studied inexactly grouped according to putative function and reasons for their use.
Fig 3.
(A) The hierarchical sampling design (19 sites x 10 trees site-1 x 30 leaves tree-1) and (B) the possible ecological significance of contrasted patterns of distribution.
Table 3.
Mean traits ± 95% confidence limits of ‘ecophysiological’ leaf traits.
Table 4.
Mean traits ± 95% confidence limits of ‘morphological size and shape’ leaf traits.
Table 5.
Mean traits ± 95% confidence limits of ‘structural allocation’ leaf traits.
Table 6.
Mean traits ± 95% confidence limits whole plant traits (i) and syndromes (ii).
Table 7.
Estimated percentage variance across hierarchical levels (site:tree:leaf) patterns differently for contrasted groupings of leaf traits.
Table 8.
Correlation matrix for trait values (n = 18).
Site 13 (Moulay Bouazza) with exceptionally high values for LWC, SLWC and LT has been excluded from this and subsequent analyses.
Table 9.
The traits that define ‘syndromes’: correlations between traits and the three PCA axes identified.
Table 10.
Correlations between climatic indices and (A) traits and (B) coefficient of variation (CV).