Patterns of physical, chemical, and metabolic characteristics of sugar maple leaves with depth in the crown and in response to nitrogen and phosphorus addition.

Few previous studies have described patterns of leaf characteristics in response to nutrient availability and depth in the crown. Sugar maple has been studied for both sensitivity to light, as a shade-tolerant species, and sensitivity to soil nutrient availability, as a species in decline due to acid rain. To explore leaf characteristics from the top to bottom of the canopy, we collected leaves along a vertical gradient within mature sugar maple crowns in a full-factorial nitrogen by phosphorus addition experiment in three forest stands in central New Hampshire, USA. Thirty-two of the 44 leaf characteristics had significant relationships with depth in the crown, with the effect of depth in the crown strongest for leaf area, photosynthetic pigments, and polyamines. Nitrogen addition had a strong impact on the concentration of foliar N, chlorophyll, carotenoids, alanine, and glutamate. For several other elements and amino acids, N addition changed patterns with depth in the crown. Phosphorus addition increased foliar P and B; it also caused a steeper increase of P and B with depth in the crown. Since most of these leaf characteristics play a direct or indirect role in photosynthesis, metabolic regulation, or cell division, studies that ignore the vertical gradient may not accurately represent whole-canopy performance.