Provenance- and life-history stage-specific responses of the dwarf shrub Calluna vulgaris to elevated vapour pressure deficit

Ibe, K. M.; Walmsley, David; Fichtner, Andreas; Coners, Heinz; Leuschner, Christoph

doi:10.1007/s11258-020-01076-3

Cited by 7 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 52 publications

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“…Note the log-scaled Y-axis. Velle and Vandvik 2014), and hence have a larger shoot : root ratio (Meyer-Grünefeldt et al 2015, Ibe et al 2020. Our data did not support these hypotheses.…”

Section: Discussion Of Hypothesescontrasting

confidence: 87%

“…Rain-out shelters reduce or exclude precipitation, which is a key-driver of drought. However, natural drought typically co-occurs with high temperatures and high vapor-pressure deficit (Ibe et al 2020). These conditions do not necessarily co-occur with the experimental reduction of precipitation, especially in otherwise moist climates, which may partly explain the surprisingly weak effects of drought in our study.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Coastal heathland vegetation is surprisingly resistant to experimental drought across successional stages and latitude

Haugum

Thorvaldsen

Vandvik

et al. 2021

Oikos

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In the last decade, several major dwarf‐shrub dieback events have occurred in northern European coastal heathlands. These dieback events occur after extended periods with sub‐zero temperatures under snow‐free conditions and clear skies, suggesting that coastal heathlands have low resistance to winter drought. As climate projections forecast increased drought frequency, intensity, and duration, coastal heathlands are likely to experience more such diebacks in the future. There are, however, few empirical studies of drought impacts and responses on plant communities in humid oceanic ecosystems. We established a drought experiment with two distinct levels of intensified drought to identify responses and thresholds of drought resistance in coastal heathland vegetation. We repeated the experiment in two regions, separated by five degrees latitude, to represent different bioclimatic conditions within the coastal heathlands' wide latitudinal range in Europe. As coastal heathlands are semi‐natural habitats managed by prescribed fire, and we repeated the experiment across three post‐fire successional phases within each region. Plant community structure, annual primary production, and primary and secondary growth of the dominant dwarf‐shrub Calluna vulgaris varied between climate regions. To our surprise, these wide‐ranging vegetation‐ and plant‐level response variables were largely unaffected by the drought treatments. Consequently, our results suggest that northern, coastal heathland vegetation is relatively resistant to substantial intensification in drought. This experiment represents the world's wettest (2200 mm year−1) and northernmost (65°8'N) drought experiment to date, thus filling important knowledge gaps on ecological drought responses in high‐precipitation and high‐latitude ecosystems across multiple phases of plant community succession.

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“…Note the log-scaled Y-axis. Velle and Vandvik 2014), and hence have a larger shoot : root ratio (Meyer-Grünefeldt et al 2015, Ibe et al 2020. Our data did not support these hypotheses.…”

Section: Discussion Of Hypothesescontrasting

confidence: 87%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Coastal heathland vegetation is surprisingly resistant to experimental drought across successional stages and latitude

Haugum

Thorvaldsen

Vandvik

et al. 2021

Oikos

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“…In a subcontinental lowland heath, the amount of seed production and germination was similar to more oceanic sites, but seedling establishment was very low (Henning et al 2017). Favourable microclimatic conditions, such as sufficient water supply and humidity are critical for successful seedling establishment (Gimingham 1972;Henning et al 2017;Ibe et al 2020). These findings indicate that the role of seed production and vegetative regeneration of heather varies along climatic gradients of oceanicity.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

The Calluna life cycle concept revisited: implications for heathland management

Schellenberg

Bergmeier

2021

Biodivers Conserv

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Heather, Calluna vulgaris, is a key species of European dry heath and central determinant of its conservation status. The established Calluna life cycle concept describes four phases—pioneer, building, mature, and degeneration—distinguishable by growth and vitality characteristics of undisturbed plants grown from seeds. However, little is known about the life cycle and ageing of plants subjected to severe disturbance, although measures to this effect (burning, mowing) are common in heathland management. We studied the vitality of over 400 heather plants by examining multiple morphological (plant height, long shoot and inflorescence lengths, flowering activity), anatomical (growth rings) and environmental (management, nitrogen deposition, climate) attributes. We found Calluna vitality to be mainly determined by the aboveground stem age, and that severe disturbances promote vigorous vegetative regeneration. Ageing-related shifts in the habit and vitality of plants resprouting from stem-base buds is similar to that of seed-based plants, but the former revealed higher vitality when young, at the cost of a shorter life span. In contrast, plants originating from decumbent stems resemble building-stage plants but apparently lack the capacity to re-enter a cycle including stages other than degeneration-type. As a consequence, we supplemented the established heather life cycle concept with a post-disturbance regeneration cycle of plants derived from resprouting. We conclude that management of dry lowland heathlands should include rotational small-scale severe disturbance to support both seed germination and seedling establishment as well as vegetative regeneration chiefly of young heather plants capable of resprouting from buds near rootstock.

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“…Despite the availability of management options that are able to counteract this airborne N enrichment, urgency is required as it has been shown that the interaction of increased N availability and climate change can have negative and non-additive effects on heathland vitality (Fagúndez, 2013;Meyer-Grünefeldt et al, 2013). Furthermore, this interaction may depend on Calluna life-stage and provenance (Meyer-Grünefeldt et al, 2016;Ibe et al, 2020). Future heathland management assessments should, therefore, include the generative rejuvenation capacity as a trade-off component which requires the presence of mineral soil horizons (Henning et al, 2017;Ibe et al, 2020;Schellenberg and Bergmeier, 2020;Walmsley and Härdtle, 2021).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Furthermore, this interaction may depend on Calluna life-stage and provenance (Meyer-Grünefeldt et al, 2016;Ibe et al, 2020). Future heathland management assessments should, therefore, include the generative rejuvenation capacity as a trade-off component which requires the presence of mineral soil horizons (Henning et al, 2017;Ibe et al, 2020;Schellenberg and Bergmeier, 2020;Walmsley and Härdtle, 2021).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ensuring the Long-Term Provision of Heathland Ecosystem Services—The Importance of a Functional Perspective in Management Decision Frameworks

et al. 2021

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The ecosystem services framework can be used as a way of balancing economic, ecological and societal drivers in land management decision-making processes. As heathland management is typically linked directly to services, the aim of this study was to quantify trade-offs related to the effects of five common heathland management measures (grazing, mowing, burning, choppering, and sod-cutting) using quantitative data from empirical studies within a northwestern heathland in Germany. Besides important services (groundwater recharge and quality, carbon stocks and appreciation by the general public) we included ecosystem functions (balances of nitrogen, phosphorus and major cations) and the net cost of management implementation as trade-off components. We found that all management practices have advantages and disadvantages leading to unavoidable trade-offs. The effect of a management practice on the trade-off components was often closely related to the amount of biomass and/or soil removed during a management cycle (Rannual). Choppering and sod-cutting (large Rannual by involving soil removal) were very good at maintaining a low N system whilst concurrently increasing groundwater recharge, albeit at the cost of all other components considered. If the aim is to preserve heathlands and their associated ecosystem services in the long-term this trade-off is inevitable, as currently only these high-intensity measures are capable of removing enough nitrogen from the system to prevent the transition to non-heather dominated habitat types. Our study, therefore, shows that in order to maintain structural integrity and thereby the service potential a habitat provides, management decision frameworks may need to prioritize ecosystem functioning over ecosystem services. Burning and mowing (low Rannual) were best at retaining phosphorus, cations and carbon and had the lowest costs. Grazing (intermediate Rannual) provided the highest relative benefit in terms of groundwater quality and appreciation. Together these results can help identify management combinations in both space and time, which will be more beneficial for functions and services than management practices considered in isolation. Furthermore, our study assists in recognizing key areas of action for the development of novel management practices and can help raise awareness of the diversity of rare species and potential benefits to people that protected cultural landscapes provide.

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Provenance- and life-history stage-specific responses of the dwarf shrub Calluna vulgaris to elevated vapour pressure deficit

Cited by 7 publications

References 52 publications

Coastal heathland vegetation is surprisingly resistant to experimental drought across successional stages and latitude

Coastal heathland vegetation is surprisingly resistant to experimental drought across successional stages and latitude

The Calluna life cycle concept revisited: implications for heathland management

Ensuring the Long-Term Provision of Heathland Ecosystem Services—The Importance of a Functional Perspective in Management Decision Frameworks

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