Leaf and stem traits of current-year twigs vary with different functional types of woody plant

The current-year twigs of 20 and 26 woody plants were collected from Jinfo Mountain and Jinyun Mountain in Chongqing City of Southwest China, respectively, to study their leaf and stem traits, aimed to explore the differences in the functional traits of current-year twigs between deciduous and evergreen species, and between trees and shrubs. The results showed that the leaf thickness was smaller for deciduous species and trees than for evergreen species and shrubs, while the leaf area and total leaf area showed an opposite trend. However, there was no significant difference in the leaf number among these different functional types of woody plants. The stem cross-sectional area, stem length, and stem dry mass were all significantly larger for deciduous species and trees than for evergreen species and shrubs, but no significant difference was observed in the stem density. Deciduous species and trees had higher leaf area ratio than evergreen species and shrubs, but less difference appeared in leaf intensity. At twig scale, evergreen species allocated more biomass to their leaves, as compared with deciduous species.