Populus alba communities disconnected from river dynamics: natural regeneration of poplar and associations between plant diversity and soil properties
Abstract
Humankind has a substantial impact on ecosystems. Direct and indirect human activities not only radically influence the ecological succession, but can also result in the mixing-up of species from different origins, or from different successional stages from different ecosystems. The "behaviour" and further development of native species in such new and not naturally occurring compositions of species, as well as the interactions among all species within, are not yet described in any testbook. This project ist focused on six already selected P. alba communities situated in riparian forests along the Danube River. One of the poplar communities is periodically flooded by the Danube, and the remaining five (which are located outside the flood protection dike) show differences in plant composition, and thus most probably also differ in the stage of soil development. In the communities we will study the role of current soil composition in maintaining a wide spectrum of plant species from pioneer to late succesional communities, and the role of asexual (vegetative) reproduction in facilitating the persistence of P. x canescens. Thus, this project comprises two clear objectives: 1) Test for associations between soil properties and species diversity. 2) Analysis of asexual reproduction by root sprouting for mature trees of P. x canescens and P. alba in the selected white poplar communities. To adequately answer these objectives, we designed an interdisciplinary study which links plant sociology (plant species diversity assessment), soil characterisation (assessment of plant available nutrients, particle size distribution, water holding capacity and soil age), and population genetics (discrimination between P. alba and P. x canescens and asexual reproduction assessment). Different analytical, molecular and non-molecular approaches and analyses will be performed on plant material and soil samples collected in the P. alba communities. In this project we expect to get a complex picture on the dynamics of P. alba communities at both an abiotic level (soil properties relevant for plant growth), and a biotic level (species diversity, and the status of the natural reneration by root shoots of the most distributed species within the community, which may be P. alba, or the hybrid P. x canescens).
asexual reproduction P. alba P. x canescens soil properties species diversity
Publikationen
Project staff
BOKU partners
External partners
University of Wienna, Institute of Botany
Ass.Prof.Dr. Luise Ehrendorfer-Schratt
partner