Carbohydrate storage in five resprouting Florida scrub plants across a fire chronosequence

Abstract

Summary• Most research analyzing nonstructural carbohydrate (NSC) concentrations on resprouter species in fire-controlled ecosystems has concentrated on how NSC concentrations recover immediately after fire. However, we know little of the effect of long periods without fire on NSC concentrations.• In order to assess the effect of different periods of time-since-fire on resprouter species, we studied carbohydrate concentrations (total [NSC], soluble sugars [SS] and nonsoluble sugars [NSS]) in five resprouting species with contrasting trends of abundance across a chronosequence of time-since-fire (0.5 -40 yr) in Florida.• Carbohydrate concentrations were highest in species with specialized reserve organs.[SS] was mainly explained by factors related to plant size, whereas timesince-fire was the main factor explaining [NSS]. Changes in [NSS] and [NSC] were correlated with the time-since-fire abundance patterns.• Variation in [NSS] carbohydrates can be related to the structural development of vegetation, with only those species capable of accessing full light able to accumulate carbohydrates, whereas subordinate plants show reductions in the [NSS] carbohydrate fractions. In areas with long intervals between fires, this carbohydrate reduction could affect subsequent postfire resprouting vigour, although this remains to be confirmed.

Short-term effects of fire on soil and plant nutrients in palmetto flatwoods

“…Decreases in retranslocation over time are suggested to occur as resource supply and root biomass increase (Salifu and Timmer 2001); however, for species that resprout after fire, an extensive root system already exists. Percent nonsoluble sugars in belowground structures of Q. geminata and Vaccinium myrsinities increase and decrease, respectively, with time after fire (Olano et al 2006), suggesting that these species vary in their capacity to resprout after fire and that time after fire may affect the ability of shrubs to reallocate nutrients to aboveground tissues. In our study, foliar %N of S. repens was not correlated with soil extractable N, suggesting that retranslocation of N from below to aboveground may be more important for S. repens than for other species.…”

Resprouting ability and mobile carbohydrate reserves in an oak shrubland decline with increasing elevation on the eastern edge of the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau

“…Reductions in root and stem NSC concentrations of Populus maximowiczii  nigra L. were detected 4 days after decapitation treatment (Tschaplinski and Blake, 1995). Olano et al (2006) indicated that the reduction of root NSC concentrations in five Florida scrub plants was related to time-since-fire, and this reduction could affect subsequent postfire resprouting vigor. Yet little is known about how the resprouting ability responds to the amount of resources (NSC) stored in the roots after disturbance, and whether resprouting ability can be affected by elevation since the growth environmental conditions (Zhu et al, 2012) and plant root biomass (Li et al, 2003;Li and Yang, 2004) decrease significantly with increasing elevation.…”

Response to recurrent disturbance in two co-occurring resprouter heath species: the ecological consequences of withstanding herbivores

“…Carbon fixed by young resprouts is allocated not only to continuing growth and to support maintenance costs (Noble 2001;Wildy and Pate 2002), but also to replenish depleted carbohydrate reserves so as to reach a threshold level that allow the plant to survive further disturbance (Iwasa and Kubo 1997). Not all resprouter plants are equally efficient in replenishing starch reserves; time to reach threshold levels of starch re-storage after severe disturbance is very species-specific (Olano et al 2006). For example, the Mediterranean holm-oak Quercus ilex needs more than 10 years to recover pre-disturbance starch levels (López et al 2009), whereas less than 2 years is enough for the Australian proteoid shrub Stirlingia latifolia (Bowen and Pate 1993).…”