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Seedling Germination Marks Ecosystem Boundaries2 min read

by ESD News and Events on April 29, 2014

Climate & Carbon Sciences Program Area Climate Sciences Department Research Highlight Terrestrial Ecosystem Science Program

Source:  Cristina Castanha and Dan Hawkes

Castanha_small

Cristina Castanha

Seedling germination and survival is a critical control on forest-ecosystem boundaries, Moreover, while it is known that species respond individualistically to the same suite of environmental drivers, the potential additional effect of local adaptation on seedling success has not been evaluated. ESD climate scientist Cristina Castanha recently led a team of investigators (including ESD’s Margaret Torn and Lara Kueppers) in quantifying conifer seedling recruitment across a subalpine forest at Niwot Ridge, Colorado, USA. Their work was an effort to determine whether local adaptation may influence the position and movement of forest-ecosystem boundaries.

Castanha et al. studied Pinus flexilis and Picea engelmannii grown from seed collected locally at high (3400 m a.s.l.) and low (3060 m a.s.l.) elevations. They monitored emergence and survival of seeds sown directly into plots and survival of seedlings germinated indoors and transplanted after snowmelt. They found that emergence and survival through the first growing season was greater for P. flexilis than P. engelmannii and for low compared with high provenances. Yet survival through the second growing season was similar for both species and provenances. Seedling emergence and survival tended to be greatest in the subalpine forest and lowest in the alpine tundra. Survival was greater for transplants than for field-germinated seedlings.

These results suggest that survival through the first few weeks is critical to the establishment of natural germinants. In addition, even small distances between seed sources can have a significant effect on early demographic performance – a factor that has rarely been considered in previous studies of tree recruitment and species range shifts.

To read further, go to: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17550874.2012.716087#tabModule

Citation:

Castanha, C., M.S. Torn, M J. Germino, B. Weibel, and L.M. Kueppers (2013), Conifer seedling recruitment across a gradient from forest to alpine tundra: effects of species, provenance, and site. Plant Ecol Divers, 6 (3-4), 307-318; DOI:10.1080/17550874.2012.716087.

Funding:  BER

News & Events

Joint Berkeley Initiative for Microbiome Sciences Hosts Microbes in a Changing Planet Symposium3 min read

November 10, 2023

The Joint Berkeley Initiative for Microbiome Sciences (JBIMS), co-led by UC Berkeley and Berkeley Lab, held an all-day “Microbes in a Changing Planet” symposium at UC Berkeley’s International House on November 3. Over 110 people from 11 institutions, including undergraduates, graduate students, postdocs, faculty, and lab scientists, attended to share their work regarding Earth’s microbiomes,…

2023 ESS-DIVE Open Data Workshop (ODW) to Propel Environmental System Science Projects into the Future4 min read

November 6, 2023

The Environmental Systems Science Data Infrastructure for a Virtual Ecosystem (ESS-DIVE) team will host a free, virtual Open Data Workshop from Wednesday, November 15 to Thursday, November 16, 2023, from 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. PT / 12:00 to 5:00 p.m. ET. This workshop is targeted for anyone who is part of a DOE Environmental…

Study Sheds Light on Microbial Communities in Earth’s Subsurface2 min read

August 16, 2023

  From the tops of tree canopies to the bottom of groundwater reservoirs, a vast amount of living organisms interact with nonliving components such as rock, water, and soil to shape this area of Earth known as the “critical zone.” Over half of Earth’s microbes are located in the subsurface critical zone, which ranges from…

Carl Steefel Honored in Goldschmidt Session on Reactive Transport2 min read

August 2, 2023

The contributions of Carl Steefel to the reactive transport modeling scientific community were recognized in a session held in his honor at the recent Goldschmidt 2023 conference (Lyon, France). Goldschmidt is the foremost annual, international conference on geochemistry and related subjects, organized by the European Association of Geochemistry and the Geochemical Society. The session was…

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