Contrasting Regeneration Strategies in Climax and Long-Lived Pioneer Tree Species in a Subtropical Forest

Haiyang Wang, Hui Feng, Yanru Zhang and Hong Chen

PLOS ONE, 2014, vol. 9, issue 11, 1-7

Abstract: 1: This study investigated 15 coexisting dominant species in a humid subtropical evergreen broad-leaved forest in southwest China, consisting of long-lived pioneers and climax species occurring in natural and disturbed regimes. The authors hypothesized that there would be non-tradeoff scaling relationships between sprouting and seed size among species, with the aim of uncovering the ecological relationship between plant sprouting and seed characteristics in the two functional groups. 2: The sprouting variations of the species were initially examined using pairwise comparisons between natural and disturbed habitats within and across species and were noted to show a continuum in persistence niches across the forest dominants, which may underlie the maintenance of plant diversity. Second, a significantly positive, rather than tradeoff, relationship between sprout number and seed size across species within each of the two functional groups was observed, and an obvious elevational shift with a common slope among the two groups in their natural habitat was examined. The results indicate the following: 1) the relationship of seed size vs. sprouts in the natural habitat is more likely to be bet-hedging among species within a guild in a forest; 2) climax species tend to choose seeding rather than sprouting regeneration, and vice versa for the long-lived pioneers; and 3) the negative correlation between sprouting and seed dispersal under disturbed conditions may imply a tradeoff between dispersal and persistence in situ during the process of plant regeneration. 3: These findings may be of potential significance for urban greening using native species.

Date: 2014
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:plo:pone00:0112385

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0112385

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