Effects of denudation and burial on growth and reproduction of Artemisia ordosica in Mu Us sandland

Plants in a dune environment have a high risk of being denudated by wind or buried by sand. We conducted a field experiment to assess growth and reproductive performance as well as biomass allocation of Artemisia ordosica after denudation and burial. Height growth decreased after denudation, but rem...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Ecological research 2010-05, Vol.25 (3), p.655-661
Main Authors: Li, Shou-Li, Zuidema, Pieter A, Yu, Fei-Hai, Werger, Marinus J. A, Dong, Ming
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Artemisia
Artemisia ordosica
Behavioral Sciences
Biomass
Biomedical and Life Sciences
Denudation
Dune habitats
Dunes
Ecology
Erosion
Evolutionary Biology
Flowers & plants
Forestry
Fruits
Growth
Life Sciences
Maturity
Original Article
Plant growth
Plant Sciences
Reproduction
Risk factors
Sand
Sand & gravel
Sand burial
Sand dunes
soil erosion
Wind
Zoology
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Summary:Plants in a dune environment have a high risk of being denudated by wind or buried by sand. We conducted a field experiment to assess growth and reproductive performance as well as biomass allocation of Artemisia ordosica after denudation and burial. Height growth decreased after denudation, but remained constant after burial; biomass was reduced by severe burial, but not by moderate ones. Vegetative growth measured by current-year generated vegetative branches declined with increasing severity of burial. Reproductive maturity was not affected by either denudation or burial, and reproduction decreased only after severe denudation. After denudation, biomass allocated to reproduction was greatly reduced, as shown by strongly reduced biomass allocation to fruits and whole reproductive branches, but that allocated to current-year vegetative growth was maintained. Biomass allocation to reproduction and vegetative growth remained rather stable after burial. Current-year reproductive-to-vegetative-biomass ratio was lower after denudation than after burial, indicating that vegetative growth was more favored by A. ordosica after denudation. These modifications are adaptive in the fluctuating environment of mobile sand dunes where denudation and burial frequently occur.
ISSN:0912-3814
1440-1703
DOI:10.1007/s11284-010-0699-x