Consistency between local and regional elevational trends
Our design was setup to examine the consistency between local and
regional elevational trends in BIH (inset in Figure 2a). Yet, while the
leaf area lost to herbivory tended to increase with local elevation
along each transect (solid line, linear regression P=0.07), it showed a
neutral-to-negative relationship with regional elevation (dotted line,
linear regression P=0.45). In contrast, the green leaf N-content showed
a similar increase with elevation along both the regional (linear
regression P=0.01) and local (linear regression P<0.01)
gradients (inset in Figure 2b). Hence, as our design captured the
expected trend in leaf foliar chemistry, it seems quite robust to test
the consistency between local and regional elevation in other ecological
variables.