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Responses of tree seedlings to understory filtering by the recalcitrant fern layer in a subtropical forest

The recalcitrant understory fern layer is an important ecological filter for seedling regeneration, yet how the fern layer influences seedling regeneration dynamics remains unclear. Here we transplanted 576 seedlings of four dominant tree species, Castanopsis fargesii, Lithocarpus glaber, Schima sup...

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Autores principales: Liu, Heming, Liang, Mengfang, Yang, Qingsong, Zhang, Jian, Shen, Guochun, Zhang, Zhenzhen, Wang, Xihua
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9730283/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36507462
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2022.1033731
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author Liu, Heming
Liang, Mengfang
Yang, Qingsong
Zhang, Jian
Shen, Guochun
Zhang, Zhenzhen
Wang, Xihua
author_facet Liu, Heming
Liang, Mengfang
Yang, Qingsong
Zhang, Jian
Shen, Guochun
Zhang, Zhenzhen
Wang, Xihua
author_sort Liu, Heming
collection PubMed
description The recalcitrant understory fern layer is an important ecological filter for seedling regeneration, yet how the fern layer influences seedling regeneration dynamics remains unclear. Here we transplanted 576 seedlings of four dominant tree species, Castanopsis fargesii, Lithocarpus glaber, Schima superba and Hovenia acerba, to the treatments of Diplopterygium glaucum retention and removal under an evergreen broad-leaved forest in eastern China. We monitored the survival, growth and biomass data of these seedlings for 28 months, and then used generalized linear mixed models to evaluate the treatment effects on seedling survival, growth, biomass and root-shoot ratio. Our results showed that fern retention significantly inhibited the seedling establishment of all four species. During the seedling development stage, the seedling relative growth rate of L. glaber decreased under fern retention, which was not the case for the other three species. Root-shoot ratio of C. fargesii and L. glaber increased significantly under fern retention. Our findings provide new evidence of the filtering effect of a recalcitrant fern understory. Notably, we observed that the response of tree seedlings to the recalcitrant fern understory was more sensitive in the establishment stage. Finally, our work highlights that the filtering effect of the recalcitrant fern understory changes depending on the regeneration stages, and that shade-tolerant species, C. fargesii and L. glaber were even more affected by fern disturbed habitats, suggesting that effective management should attempt to curb forest fern outbreaks, thus unblocking forest recruitment.
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spelling pubmed-97302832022-12-09 Responses of tree seedlings to understory filtering by the recalcitrant fern layer in a subtropical forest Liu, Heming Liang, Mengfang Yang, Qingsong Zhang, Jian Shen, Guochun Zhang, Zhenzhen Wang, Xihua Front Plant Sci Plant Science The recalcitrant understory fern layer is an important ecological filter for seedling regeneration, yet how the fern layer influences seedling regeneration dynamics remains unclear. Here we transplanted 576 seedlings of four dominant tree species, Castanopsis fargesii, Lithocarpus glaber, Schima superba and Hovenia acerba, to the treatments of Diplopterygium glaucum retention and removal under an evergreen broad-leaved forest in eastern China. We monitored the survival, growth and biomass data of these seedlings for 28 months, and then used generalized linear mixed models to evaluate the treatment effects on seedling survival, growth, biomass and root-shoot ratio. Our results showed that fern retention significantly inhibited the seedling establishment of all four species. During the seedling development stage, the seedling relative growth rate of L. glaber decreased under fern retention, which was not the case for the other three species. Root-shoot ratio of C. fargesii and L. glaber increased significantly under fern retention. Our findings provide new evidence of the filtering effect of a recalcitrant fern understory. Notably, we observed that the response of tree seedlings to the recalcitrant fern understory was more sensitive in the establishment stage. Finally, our work highlights that the filtering effect of the recalcitrant fern understory changes depending on the regeneration stages, and that shade-tolerant species, C. fargesii and L. glaber were even more affected by fern disturbed habitats, suggesting that effective management should attempt to curb forest fern outbreaks, thus unblocking forest recruitment. Frontiers Media S.A. 2022-11-24 /pmc/articles/PMC9730283/ /pubmed/36507462 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2022.1033731 Text en Copyright © 2022 Liu, Liang, Yang, Zhang, Shen, Zhang and Wang https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Plant Science
Liu, Heming
Liang, Mengfang
Yang, Qingsong
Zhang, Jian
Shen, Guochun
Zhang, Zhenzhen
Wang, Xihua
Responses of tree seedlings to understory filtering by the recalcitrant fern layer in a subtropical forest
title Responses of tree seedlings to understory filtering by the recalcitrant fern layer in a subtropical forest
title_full Responses of tree seedlings to understory filtering by the recalcitrant fern layer in a subtropical forest
title_fullStr Responses of tree seedlings to understory filtering by the recalcitrant fern layer in a subtropical forest
title_full_unstemmed Responses of tree seedlings to understory filtering by the recalcitrant fern layer in a subtropical forest
title_short Responses of tree seedlings to understory filtering by the recalcitrant fern layer in a subtropical forest
title_sort responses of tree seedlings to understory filtering by the recalcitrant fern layer in a subtropical forest
topic Plant Science
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9730283/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36507462
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2022.1033731
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