Species varied markedly in the composition and IVI at different sites. We investigated the composition of tropical dry forest woody species at adult, sapling, and seedling stages, in terms of plant diversity, distribution, and importance value index (IVI), and identified the dominant and ubiquitous species in the five study sites having variable edaphic properties. Important point to note here is that photosynthetic rate (A max ) is not an important parameter to determine RGR in TDF where water economy and extended period of leaflessness are critical. All these are also significantly modulated by soil moisture availability. First three variables represent quantity of photosynthetic surface and last represent water use economy of a species. Step-wise multipleregression indicates that more than 80% variability in RGR can be explained by canopy cover (CC), leaf area index (LAI), specific leaf area (SLA) and leaf intrinsic water use efficiency (WUEi) alone. Plasticity in FTs due to changes in environmental parameters explained the variations in RGR. However, the strength of effect is determined by environmental parameters and in case of TDF soil water availability is the importantparameter. All FTs under study affect relative growth rate (RGR) of the tree and shrub species directly or indirectly. The plasticity in FTs also differed significantly across species. Results showed that the plasticity in FTs significantly varied across the study sites. We also studied the relationships among FTs and between FTs and soil properties across sites. Further, the response of FTs to SMC across species and siteswas analysed. The aim was to observe the range of FTs in tree and shrub species across the study sites. We analysed the phenotypic plasticity in nineteen functional traits (FTs) (seven morphological and twelve physiological) in tree and shrub species across the five study sites located in a tropical dry forest (TDF), showing variable soil moisture content (SMC).
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