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- Title
PHENOLOGICAL, AUTECOLOGICAL AND PHYTOCOENOLOGICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF A Sedum caespitosum Cav (CRASSULACEAE) POPULATION FROM CENTRAL DOBROGEA (SE ROMANIA), LESSONS FOR BROADER, MORE EFFECTIVE CONSERVATION.
- Authors
NICULAE, Marilena
- Abstract
Sedum caespitosum is a small 5(4)-merous and haplostemonous ephemeral Crassulacean, precociously inhabiting inhospitable habitats a few weeks in spring, vanishing before competitors progress in their lifecycles. As phenological shifts are responses to climate changes, and because the Dobrogean populations show phenological, autecological and phytocoenological characteristics differing from halophylous South-Eastern Central European populations, I report herein data about a population located near Gura Dobrogei in Central Romanian Dobrogea. The phenology of Sedum caespitosum is typical for ephemeral therophytes, with overwintering seeds (resting propagules). The active phase of the lifecycle begins in March and lasts about two months, as by June the plants are completely dry with ripe seeds. Particularly unusually though, S. caespitosum population studied shows a distinct, second blooming-phase, sometimes succeeding a brief apparent vegetative arrest/death of leaves and shoot parts which bloomed in the first blooming period, indicating the existence of two meristem subsets with anthesis decouple by brief endodormancy. If true, this hypothesis would be a highly unusual case in an annual plant, similar to some sort of condensed polycarpy (as Barca V suggested in personal communication). The ecological and phytocoenological data reported here show that Sedum caespitosum grows in Dobrogea in clearly non-halophylous plant associations developed on shallow topsoil covering the superficial limestone bedrock, and supporting the hypothesis that it is at most an opportunistic halophyte being just a salt-tolerant species exploiting ecological niches inaccesible for other plants, thus avoiding the competition which it is unable to withstand. Another explanation of the observed autecological and phytocoenological inconsistent preferences exhibited by Sedum caespitosum, is that the halophylous populations from South-Eastern Central Europe indeed belong to a distinct taxon, specialised in exploiting salt-rich flatlands and saltpans, as claimed by Simonkai when describing Sedum deserti-hungarici Simonkai (1890) based on specimens from one of those halophylous populations.
- Subjects
SEDUM; PLANT phenology; ANNUALS (Plants); TOPSOIL; PLANT communities
- Publication
Oltenia, Studii si Comunicari Seria Stiintele Naturii, 2018, Vol 34, Issue 2, p79
- ISSN
1454-6914
- Publication type
Article