Nitrogen in cell walls of sclerophyllous leaves accounts for little of the variation in photosynthetic nitrogen-use efficiency

Photosynthetic rate per unit nitrogen generally declines as leaf mass per unit area (LMA) increases. To determine how much of this decline was associated with allocating a greater proportion of leaf nitrogen into cell wall material, we compared two groups of plants. The first group consisted of two species from each of eight genera, all of which were perennial evergreens growing in the Australian National Botanic Gardens (ANBG). The second group consisted of seven Eucalyptus species growing in a greenhouse. The percentage of leaf biomass in cell walls was independent of variation in LMA within any genus, but varied from 25 to 65% between genera. The nitrogen concentration of cell wall material was 0.4 times leaf nitrogen concentration for all species apart from Eucalyptus, which was 0.6 times leaf nitrogen concentration. Between 10 and 30% of leaf nitrogen was recovered in the cell wall fraction, but this was independent of LMA. No trade-off was observed between nitrogen associated with cell walls and the nitrogen allocated to ribulose 1.5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase (Rubisco). Variation in photosynthetic rate per unit nitrogen could not be explained by variation in cell wall nitrogen. © 2009 The Authors.