Management legacy in the understory of North American mixed boreal regenerating stands

Aubin, Isabelle; Deshaies, Olivier; Cardou, Françoise; Sirois, Luc

doi:10.1016/j.foreco.2014.02.001

Cited by 10 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 66 publications

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“…We calculated the CWM value of each trait by multiplying the mean trait value of each species across our sites by its relative occurrence at each site following Aubin, Deshaies, Cardou, and Sirois (), or by obtaining the relative frequency of categorical traits. In urban woodlands, understorey composition is a better indicator of contemporary ecosystem properties, whereas effect traits can be expected to drive ecosystem functioning proportionally with their biomass, regardless of the timescale under consideration.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Functional markers to predict forest ecosystem properties along a rural‐to‐urban gradient

Cardou

Aubin

Bergeron

et al. 2020

J Vegetation Science

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Questions:With increasing focus on urban sustainability, new tools are needed to manage urban woodlands for resilience and ecosystem service provision. Functional traits can provide quantitative and testable links between urban plant communities and specific ecosystem properties (functional markers). We ask whether commonly described multivariate patterns of trait association with urbanization (trait syndromes) capture changes in ecosystem properties associated with urbanization.Given that environmental heterogeneity can generate weak or non-linear trait-ecosystem property relationships, we ask whether linear methods can yield functional markers with significant power for different ecosystem properties.Location: Montreal metropolitan area (Canada). Methods:We documented the functional composition of 43 woodlands along an urbanization gradient and measured proxies of three ecosystem properties: plant colonization, soil water infiltration and organic matter decomposition. We use redundancy analysis to identify traits associated with urbanization, and multiple linear regression and model selection to identify response and effect traits that best predict actual differences in ecosystem properties. We compare the resulting linear model with a non-linear equivalent.Results: Traits associated with urbanization (urban syndrome) were inconsistently selected as best predictors of ecosystems properties (functional markers). Although predictive power varied between ecosystem properties, all three could be significantly predicted from community-weighted traits (functional markers), with both response and effect traits contributing to the final model. When we fitted equivalent non-linear models, we found that traits had largely non-linear relationships with ecosystem properties. Conclusions:Our results demonstrate that community-weighted traits of urban woodlands can yield functional markers that capture ecosystem properties, but these are inconsistently identified by "trait syndrome" approaches. In linear combinations, such functional markers provide a testable and generalizable way to quantify ecosystem properties in urban woodlands. Capturing such properties is one important step toward management of woodlands for their continued ability to provide ecosystem services into the future.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Functional markers to predict forest ecosystem properties along a rural‐to‐urban gradient

Cardou

Aubin

Bergeron

et al. 2020

J Vegetation Science

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“…Some studies do not calculate functional indices, but combine raw traits into a communityweighted mean (CWM) matrix from the L and Q matrices, and subject this new matrix to PCA or similar analysis Aubin et al 2014;Bachand et al 2014;Boiffin et al 2015). Species have also been categorized into emergent groups that represent coherent trait groupings using cluster analysis (Aubin et al 2007;Aubin et al 2008).…”

Section: Comparison With Other Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Even in relatively species-poor boreal forests, the qualitatively different impacts of forestry and natural disturbances lead to large differences in age class distribution (Boucher et al 2006), dominant tree species Hearndon et al 1992), and understory community composition Aubin et al 2008;Hart and Chen 2006;Venier et al 2014). In some cases, these differences can persist for decades across a successional sere (e.g Aubin et al 2014;Ramovs and Roberts 2005), but for a counter-example see Reich et al (2001).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Different types and degrees of anthropogenic disturbances differ in their effects on understory species richness and the species characteristics (or traits) that they favour or inhibit. Aubin et al (2014) point out that clearcut harvesting followed a year or two later by mechanical site preparation constitute a "double disturbance" that appears to favour early successional species. On the other hand, where harvesting is not followed by site preparation, the forest floor may remain more or less intact relative to a fire-regenerated site.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Understory species and functional diversity in a chronosequence of jack pine and red pine stands in the south-central boreal forest

Park

Carpenter

2016

Botany

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Dominant tree species and anthropogenic disturbances influence understory taxonomic diversity (TD) and species traits (functional diversity, FD) in managed forests. We compared understory TD and FD in managed jack pine (Pinus banksiana Lamb.) stands and red pine (Pinus resinosa Ait.) plantations. Understory herbs, grasses, shrubs, and nonvascular species were assessed in 1 m2 quadrats on two perpendicular line transects. Data were analyzed using generalised least squares regression, and multivariate fourth corner and RLQ analyses. Although there were few differences in understory species communities, red pine plantations appeared to impose weak environmental filters on TD in ways that were absent from the jack pine stands. Taxonomic diversity declined with age in red pine but not in jack pine, and may have been affected by the accumulation of litter cover in red pine stands. Although vegetation cover was lower in red pine than in jack pine, species richness on a percent cover basis was greater, and saturated at high cover levels in jack pine. Functional richness and evenness were unaffected by overstory species, but high litter cover favoured higher values of functional divergence. These results imply that there was a high level of functional redundancy among species for the suite of traits that we analyzed.

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“…By simplifying taxonomic diversity to functional diversity, traits provide a process-oriented representation of the plant community (Lavorel et al 1997) to help identify the mechanisms that drive community change, which, in turn, influence ecosystem functioning (Lavorel & Garnier 2002;Lavorel 2013;Soudzilovskaia et al 2013). This approach is useful for studying the effect of environmental processes that operate at different scales, influencing local species assemblages and inducing non-random plant community structures (Aubin et al 2014).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Recovery of plant community functional traits following severe soil perturbation in plantations: a case-study

Hébert

Bachand

Thiffault

et al. 2016

International Journal of Biodiversity Science, Ecosystem Servic

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We present a case study in which we assessed the effects of a severe soil perturbation on the plant community and soil variables in young hybrid poplar (Populus sp.) plantations of southern Québec (Canada). Our overall goal was to test if soil perturbation and planting fast-growing species could promote the reestablishment of a relatively diverse plant community. A chronosequence that included three plantations (4, 8, and 12-year old) established after soil scarification, paired with three natural stands representative of the local temperate mixedwood forest comprising both pioneer and late-successional tree species, was implemented. Vegetation surveys and soil collection were performed in 2012 and species traits were provided by the Traits Of Plants In Canada and TRY databases. Principal response curve analyses showed species and functional trait divergence between treated and natural stands at ages 4 and 8, but that those divergences were less at age 12. Species and trait convergences were slower in the scarification furrows than in the scarification berms (mounds between furrows). However, severe site preparation did not appear to affect soil variables on the study sites. Our results suggest that even following severe site preparation, gradual recovery of species and trait composition similar to that of natural stands appears possible in the long term, mainly through fast canopy development by hybrid poplar. However, organic material export and soil erosion risks associated with this type of site preparation need to be evaluated. ARTICLE HISTORY

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Management legacy in the understory of North American mixed boreal regenerating stands

Cited by 10 publications

References 66 publications

Functional markers to predict forest ecosystem properties along a rural‐to‐urban gradient

Functional markers to predict forest ecosystem properties along a rural‐to‐urban gradient

Understory species and functional diversity in a chronosequence of jack pine and red pine stands in the south-central boreal forest

Recovery of plant community functional traits following severe soil perturbation in plantations: a case-study

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