Does a trade‐off between growth plasticity and resource conservatism mediate post‐fire shrubland responses to rainfall seasonality?

Autor: Adam G. West, Res Altwegg, M. Timm Hoffman, Justin J. van Blerk
Rok vydání: 2021
Předmět:
Zdroj: New Phytologist. 230:1407-1420
ISSN: 1469-8137
0028-646X
DOI: 10.1111/nph.17246
Popis: Growth plasticity may allow fire-prone species to maximize their recovery rates during temporary, sporadic periods of rainfall availability in the post-fire environment. However, moisture-driven growth plasticity could be maladaptive in nutrient-limited environments that require tighter control of growth and resource use. We investigated whether a trade-off between plasticity and conservatism mediates growth responses to altered rainfall seasonality in neighbouring shrubland communities that occupy different soils. We monitored post-fire vegetation regrowth in two structurally similar, Mediterranean-type shrublands for 3 years. We investigated the effects of experimentally altered rainfall seasonality on post-fire species' growth rates. We found that moisture-driven growth plasticity was higher among species occupying the fertile soils of the renosterveld site relative to those occupying the nutrient-poor soils of the fynbos site. This resulted in higher overall responsiveness of post-fire recovery patterns in renosterveld to experimental shifts in rainfall seasonality. In post-fire shrubland communities, the trade-off between moisture-dependent growth plasticity and resource conservatism could be mediated by soil nutrient availability. Therefore, edaphic differences between structurally similar shrublands could lead to differences in their sensitivity to post-fire rainfall seasonality.
Databáze: OpenAIRE
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