| Plant traits | Units of measurement | Methods of measurement |
Performance measures | Above Ground biomass | gm | Destructive sampling of plant materials within a quadrat of 0.5 × 0.5 sq. m. size |
The above ground biomass was divided into vegetative and reproductive plant parts | |||
Vegetative biomass | gm | Includes stems and leaves of plant samples | |
Reproductive biomass | gm | Includes the inflorescence of plants | |
| Population height | cm | Average height of the population measured on 10 mature individuals up to the general height of the foliage |
Average species richness | Number | Number of associated species within the quadrat | |
Vegetative | Leaf surface area (LA) | mm2 | Scanned measurements of 2 fresh 8th nodal leaves of each of 10 individual plants using a flat-bed scanner providing. tiff images which were processed using the software LAFORE [48] |
The pooled estimate of a sample of 10 individuals’ aggregate LA was used to calculate the leaf traits | |||
Lamina dry biomass | gm | Lamina samples (2 × 10 plants) oven-dried to constant weight at 75˚C for 3 days | |
Specific Leaf Area (SLA) | mm2∙g−1 | LA divided by its oven-dry mass | |
Leaf Dry Matter Content (LDMC) | mg∙g−1 | Calculated as dry weight divided by fresh weight of lamina | |
Proline | n∙mol∙g−1∙FW | Following standard methodology of Bates et al. [46] | |
Vegetative N | % N∙mg−1 | Vegetative N per mg of plant sample following Nelson and Sommers [49] | |
Laminar N area−1 | % N∙mm−2 | Lamina N/lamina area | |
Laminar P area−1 | mg∙kg−1∙mm−2 | Lamina P (estimated colorimetrically following [50] )/Lamina area | |
Laminar K area−1 | mg kg−1∙mm−2 | Lamina K (estimated in flame photometer following [51] )/Lamina area | |
Reproductive | Reproductive N | % N∙mg−1 | Reproductive N per mg of plant sample [49] |
Seed weight | gm | Average weight of 50 seeds in each replica | |
Final Germination Percentage | % | Following standard methodology of estimation of seed germination parameters [47] | |
Mean Germination Time (MGT) | Days | ||
Median Germination Time (T50) | Days |