Symbiotic N fixation effects on the growth and nutrient traits of tree legumes under different fertilization regimes

The economics spectrum (ES) and functional equilibrium hypothesis were tested through the multivariate analysis evaluating the fertilization treatments, species and biological nitrogen fixation effects. The excel archive presents the raw collected data, the standardized by the relativization maximum method data, and the nonmetric multidimensional scaling loadings and product-moment correlations (r). We encourage to use the raw dataset for further meta analysis studies. The Relative growth rates in diameter (RGR d) and height (RGR h); the absolute growth rates in biomass (AGR bio); leaf mass fraction (LMF); stem mass fraction (SMF); root mass fraction (RMF); shoot-to-root ratio (S:R); biomass production of the leaf (Leaves), stem (Stems) and root (Roots) components; phosphorous (P) and nitrogen (N) concentrations and nitrogen-to-phosphorous ratio (N:P) of leaves (leaf), stems (stem) and roots (root), was presented for the low nutrient (1) and high nutrient (2) fertilization treatments and for the 6 species studied sp1. Cenostigma tocantinum; sp2. Senna reticulata; sp3. Dipteryx odorata; sp4. Clitoria fairchildiana; sp5. Ina edulis; sp6. Acacia sp. The main findings of our study confirm the ES and functional equilibrium hypothesis as most species increased RGRs in diameter and height under high-nutrient regime, whereas plants under low-nutrient treatment increased allocation to the root mass fraction. Under the low-nutrient treatment Acacia sp. somehow diverged from the ES and functional equilibrium assumptions having significant growth. Growth rates and RMF were sensitive to the fertilization and species effects whereas nutrient concentrations were mostly insensitive to environmental cues.