Skip to main content
Log in

Belowground bud production is linked to population establishment in Sorghastrum nutans (Poaceae)

  • Published:
Plant Ecology Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Belowground bud production mediates many responses of tallgrass prairie grasses to temporal environmental variation, and clonal spread contributes to dominance in successional plant communities. However, we know little about the importance of these regenerative traits for vegetation establishment in grassland restoration and about their regional variability. Further, geographic seed or transplant sources affect plant performance. We investigated the effects of seed source on the number of belowground buds per tiller, clonal spread (total rhizome length adjusted for plant biomass), and population establishment in the native C4 grass Sorghastrum nutans sown into tallgrass prairie restorations using reciprocal common gardens in three sites (in Nebraska, Kansas, and Oklahoma). We characterized buds per tiller and clonal spread at the plant level and related both traits to population establishment at the restoration plot level. Plant-level bud production significantly differed among seed sources and common garden sites, and was positively associated with plot-level establishment (density and canopy cover), but plant-level clonal spread did not differ among seed sources or common garden sites and was not associated with the plot-level establishment. Our results are among the first to link bud production, which varied among source populations, to differences in plant population establishment. These results suggest that we should more often consider differences among sources in traits closely tied to post-seeding population establishment. The use of sources that possess such traits may facilitate successful establishment in restoration settings.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Subscribe and save

Springer+ Basic
$34.99 /Month
  • Get 10 units per month
  • Download Article/Chapter or eBook
  • 1 Unit = 1 Article or 1 Chapter
  • Cancel anytime
Subscribe now

Buy Now

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Archer S, Pyke DA (1991) Plant–animal interactions affecting plant establishment and persistence on revegetated rangeland. J Range Manag 44:558–565

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Baer SG, Kitchen DJ, Blair JM, Rice CW (2002) Changes in ecosystem structure and function along a chronosequence of restored grasslands. Ecol Appl 12:1688–1701

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Benson EJ, Hartnett DC (2006) The role of seed and vegetative reproduction in plant recruitment and demography in tallgrass prairie. Plant Ecol 187:163–178

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bischoff A (2002) Dispersal and establishment of floodplain grassland species as limiting factors in restoration. Biol Conserv 104:25–33

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Boyd CS, Davies KW (2012) Spatial variability in cost and success of revegetation in a Wyoming big sagebrush community. Environ Manag 50:441–450

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Boyd CS, Lemos JA (2013) Freezing stress influences emergence of germinated perennial grass seeds. Rangel Ecol Manag 66:136–142

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Briske DD (1991) Developmental morphology and physiology of grasses, Chap. 4. In: Heitschmidt RK, Stuth JW (eds) Grazing management: an ecological perspective. Timber Press, Portland, pp 11–26

    Google Scholar 

  • Broadhurst LM, Lowe A, Coates DJ, Cunningham SA, McDonald M, Vesk PA, Yates C (2008) Seed supply for broadscale restoration: maximizing evolutionary potential. Evol Appl 1:587–597

    PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Camill P, Mckone MJ, Sturges ST, Severud SJ, Ellis E, Limmer J, Martin CB, Navratil RT, Purdie AJ, Sandel BS, Talukder S, Trout A (2004) Community and ecosystem-level changes in a species-rich tallgrass prairie restoration. Ecol Appl 14:1680–1694

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Carter DL, Blair JM (2012a) Recovery of native plant community characteristics on a chronosequence of restored prairies seeded into pastures in west-central Iowa. Restor Ecol 20:170–179

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Carter DL, Blair JM (2012b) Seed source affects establishment and survival for three grassland species sown into reciprocal common gardens. Ecosphere 3:102

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Carter DL, VanderWeide BL, Blair JM (2012) Drought-mediated stem and below-ground bud dynamics in restored grasslands. Appl Veg Sci 15:470–478

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chambers JC, MacMahon JA (1994) A day in the life of a seed: movements and fates of seeds and their implications for natural and managed systems. Annu Rev Ecol Syst 25:263–292

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chapin FS, Schulze E, Mooney HA (1990) The ecology and economics of storage in plants. Annu Rev Ecol Syst 21:423–447

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chesson P, Peterson AG (2002) The quantitative assessment of the benefits of physiological integration in clonal plants. Evol Ecol Res 4:1153–1176

    Google Scholar 

  • Cione NK, Padgett PE, Allen EB (2002) Restoration of a native shrubland impacted by exotic grasses, frequent fire, and nitrogen deposition in southern California. Restor Ecol 10:376–384

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dalgleish HJ, Hartnett DC (2006) Below-ground bud banks increase along a precipitation gradient of the North American Great Plains: a test of the meristem limitation hypothesis. N Phytol 171:81–89

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Daubenmire R (1968) Plant communities. A textbook of plant synecology. Evanston, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Dickson TL, Busby WH (2009) Forb species establishment increases with decreased grass seeding density and with increased forb seeding density in a Northeast Kansas, USA, experimental prairie restoration. Restor Ecol 17:597–605

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dickson TL, Hopwood JL, Wilsey BJ (2012) Do priority effects benefit invasive plants more than native plants? An experiment with six grassland species. Biol Invasions 14:2617–2624

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Enquist BJ, Niklas KJ (2002) Global allocation rules for patterns of biomass partitioning in seed plants. Science 295:1517–1520

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Eriksson O, Ehrlén J (1992) Seed and microsite limitation of recruitment in plant populations. Oecologia 91:360–364

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fay PA, Schultz MJ (2009) Germination, survival, and growth of grass and forb seedlings: effects of soil moisture variability. Acta Oecol 35:679–684

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fischer M, Van Kleunen M (2001) On the evolution of clonal plant life histories. Evol Ecol 15:565–582

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Funk JL, Cleland EE, Suding KN, Zavaleta ES (2008) Restoration through reassembly: plant traits and invasion resistance. Trends Ecol Evol 23:695–703

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Galloway JN, Dentener FJ, Capone DG, Boyer EW, Howarth RW, Seitzinger SP, Asner GP, Cleveland CC, Green PA, Holland EA, Karl DM, Michaels AF, Porter JH, Townsend AR, Voosmarty CJ (2004) Nitrogen cycles: past, present, and future. Biogeochemistry 70:153–226

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Grime JP (2001) Plant strategies, vegetation processes, and ecosystem properties. Wiley, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Gustafson DJ, Gibson DJ, Nickrent DL (2005) Using local seeds in prairie restoration: data support the paradigm. Native Plants J 6:25–28

    Google Scholar 

  • Hall MC, Willis JH (2006) Divergent selection on flowering time contributes to local adaptation in Mimulus guttatus populations. Evolution 60:2466–2477

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Hansen J, Johnson D, Lacis A, Lebedeff S, Lee P, Rind D, Russell G (1981) Climate impact of increasing atmospheric carbon-dioxide. Science 213:957–966

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Harper JL (1977) Population biology of plants. Academic Press, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Hartnett DC, Bazzaz FA (1983) Physiological integration among intraclonal ramets in Solidago canadensis. Ecology 64:779–788

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hartnett DC, Bazzaz FA (1985) The genet and ramet population dynamics of Solidago canadensis in an abandoned field. J Ecol 73:407–413

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hernandez-Santana V, Zhou X, Helmers MJ, Asbjornsen H, Kolka R, Tomer M (2012) Native prairie filter strips reduce runoff from hillslopes under annual row-crop systems in Iowa, USA. J Hydrol 477:94–103

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hothorn T, Hornik K, van de Wiel MA, Zeileis A (2006) A lego system for conditional inference. Am Stat 60:257–263

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hothorn T, Bretz F, Westfall P (2008) Simultaneous inference in general parametric models. Biom J 50:346–363

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Hufford KM, Mazer SJ (2012) Local adaptation and the effects of grazing on the performance of Nassella pulchra: implications for seed sourcing in restoration. Restor Ecol 20:688–695

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hutchings MJ, de Kroon H (1994) Foraging in plants: the role of morphological plasticity in resource acquisition. Adv Ecol Res 25:159–238

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kindscher K, Tieszen L (1998) Floristic and soil organic matter changes after five and thirty-five years of native tallgrass prairie restoration. Restor Ecol 6:181–196

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Klimešová J, Klimeš L (2007) Bud banks and their role in vegetative regeneration: a literature review and proposal for simple classification and assessment. Perspect Plant Ecol Evol Syst 8:115–129

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Klopf RP, Baer SG (2011) Root dynamics of cultivar and non-cultivar population sources of two dominant grasses during initial establishment of tallgrass prairie. Restor Ecol 19:112–117

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kurtz C (2001) A practical guide to prairie reconstruction. University of Iowa Press, Iowa City

    Google Scholar 

  • Latzel V, Mihulka S, Klimešová J (2008) Plant traits and regeneration of urban plant communities after disturbance: does the bud bank play any role? Appl Veg Sci 11:387–394

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Legendre P (2013) lmodel2: model II regression. R package version 1.7-1

  • Li B, Suzuki JI, Hara T (1998) Latitudinal variation in plant size and relative growth rate in Arabidopsis thaliana. Oecologia 115:293–301

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Martin LM, Wilsey BJ (2006) Assessing grassland restoration success: relative roles of seed additions and native ungulate activities. J Appl Ecol 43:1098–1109

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Miller SA, Bartow A, Gisler M, Ward K, Young AS, Kaye TN (2011) Can an ecoregion serve as a seed transfer zone? Evidence from a common garden study with five native species. Restor Ecol 19:268–276

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Otfinowski R, Kenkel NC (2008) Clonal integration facilitates the proliferation of smooth brome clones invading northern fescue prairies. Plant Ecol 199:235–242

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pinheiro J, Bates D, DebRoy S, Sarkar D, R Development Core Team (2013) nlme: linear and nonlinear mixed effects models. R package version 3.1-110

  • Prach K, Pyšek P (1994) Clonal plants: what is their role in succession? Folia Geobot 29:307–320

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Prach K, Řehounková K, Řehounek J, Konvalinkova P (2011) Ecological restoration of Central European mining sites: a summary of a multi-site analysis. Landsc Res 36:263–268

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rahmsdorf S, Coumou D (2011) Increase of extreme events in a warming world. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 108:17905–17909

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • R Core Team (2012) R: a language and environment for statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna. http://www.R-project.org

  • Rogers WE, Hartnett DC (2001) Temporal variation dynamics and recolonization mechanisms on different-sized soil disturbances in tallgrass prairie. Am J Bot 88:1634–1642

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Roiloa SR, Retuerto R (2006) Physiological integration ameliorates effects of serpentine soils in the clonal herb Fragaria vesca. Phyliologia Plant 128:672–676

    Google Scholar 

  • Schilling KE, Jacobson P (2010) Groundwater conditions under a reconstructed prairie chronosequence. Agric Ecosyst Environ 135:81–89

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Stevens JM, Fehmi JS (2011) Early establishment of a native grass reduces the competitive effect of a non-native grass. Restor Ecol 19:399–406

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Strzepek K, Yohe G, Neumann J, Boehlert B (2010) Characterizing changes in drought risk for the United States from climate change. Environ Res Lett 5(044012):1–9

    Google Scholar 

  • Suding KN, Hobbs RJ (2009) Threshold models in restoration and conservation: a developing framework. Trends Ecol Evol 24:271–279

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Tiessen J, Stewart JWB, Bettany JR (1982) Cultivation effects on the amounts and concentration of carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus in grassland soils. Agron J 74:831–835

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Towne EG (2002) Vascular plants of Konza Prairie Biological Station: an annotated checklist of species in a Kansas tallgrass prairie. SIDA Contrib Bot 20:269–294

    Google Scholar 

  • Vitasse Y, Delzon S, Bresson CC, Michalet R, Kremer A (2009) Altitudinal differentiation in growth and phenology among populations of temperate-zone tree species growing in a common garden. Can J For Res 39:1259–1269

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Walker KJ, Stevens PA, Stevens DP, Mountford JO, Manchester SJ, Pywell RF (2004) The restoration and re-creation of species-rich lowland grassland on land formerly managed for intensive agriculture in the UK. Biol Conserv 119:1–18

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Walther GR, Roques A, Hulme PE et al (2009) Alien species in a warmer world: risks and opportunities. Trends Ecol Evol 24:686–693

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Wu H, Pratley J, Lemerle D, Haig T (2001) Allelopathy in wheat (Triticum aestivum). Ann Appl Bio 139:1–9

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Young TP, Chase JM, Huddleston RT (2001) Community succession and assembly comparing, contrasting and combining paradigms in the context of ecological restoration. Ecol Restor 19:5–18

    Google Scholar 

  • Yu F, Chen Y, Dong M (2001) Clonal integration enhances survival and performance of Potentilla anserina, suffering from partial sand burial on Ordos plateau, China. Evol Ecol 15:303–318

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

We thank TNC for site access; and Chris Helzer, Jeremy Tubbs, Chris Wilson, and Mardell Jasnowski for logistical support. The Konza Prairie LTER Program provided funding. The labs of David Hartnett and John Blair provided lab resources.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Daniel L. Carter.

Additional information

Communicated by Jennifer Lee Firn.

Appendix

Appendix

See Tables 1 and 2.

Table 1 Site location, 1981–2010 mean and 2010 and 2011 observed total precipitation (ppt) and temperature (Temp.) means for meteorological summer (June–August), and land-use history for each common garden location
Table 2 Species in seed additions (nomenclature from the United States Department of Agriculture Plants Database, URL: plants.usda.gov/java, Accessed 3/2012), amount of live seed added to each plot (equal among all the seed sources), and broad functional groupings

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Carter, D.L., VanderWeide, B.L. Belowground bud production is linked to population establishment in Sorghastrum nutans (Poaceae). Plant Ecol 215, 977–986 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11258-014-0353-8

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11258-014-0353-8

Keywords

Navigation

pFad - Phonifier reborn

Pfad - The Proxy pFad of © 2024 Garber Painting. All rights reserved.

Note: This service is not intended for secure transactions such as banking, social media, email, or purchasing. Use at your own risk. We assume no liability whatsoever for broken pages.


Alternative Proxies:

Alternative Proxy

pFad Proxy

pFad v3 Proxy

pFad v4 Proxy