Environmental scientists of Leiden University have found that the so-called leaf economics spectrum for plants can not only be applied to terrestrial ecosystems, such as forests and grasslands, but also to wetlands. Furthermore, they showed that wetland plants generally have a fast-return strategy, meaning they have higher metabolic rates and a faster return on investment of nutrient and leaf materials, but shorter leaf lifespan. The findings, published in Nature Communications, help explain the high productivity of plants in wetland ecosystems.