Isotopic variance among plant lipid homologues correlates with biodiversity patterns of their source communities
Fig 2
Compiled leaf-wax n-alkanes signatures of contemporary plants.
Compiled leaf-wax n-alkanes signatures of 139 contemporary plants, which represent 82 distinctive species of (sub)tropical African savannah vegetation communities (S1 Table). Plants were separated by photosynthetic pathway and growth habit into one of three overarching plant functional types (PFTs): C3 woody (n = 42), C3 forbs (n = 22), and C4 grass (n = 75). Stable carbon isotopic values of C27–C33 n-alkanes (δ13C#) are shown as medians with their median absolute deviation (±MAD). Histograms depict the relative abundance of C27–C33 n-alkanes in each PFT (median±MAD).