We found a match
Your institution may have access to this item. Find your institution then sign in to continue.
- Title
Growth response to subarctic dwarf shrubs, Empetrum nigrum and Vaccinium vitis-idaea, to manipulated environmental conditions and speciesremoval.
- Authors
Ojala, A.
- Abstract
We investigated the growth responses of two evergreen dwarf shrubs Empetrum nigrum and Vaccinium vitis-idaea to environmental manipulations (elevated temperature, increased precipitation and simulated acid rain) and to experimentally altered species composition in a three-year field experiment in the Finnish Subarctic. The responses of these species to experimental manipulations were highly complex, due to species-specific patterns of growth, great inter-annual variation and a high number of interactions between temperature, water and community composition. Both species showed increased shoot growth in the secondand third season in response to elevated temperature. Elevated temperature also accelerated the vegetative bud break and shifted the peakshoot growth to an earlier time. The shoot growth of V. vitis-idaea was generally enhanced by additional irrigation, while the growth of E. nigrum tended to decrease in watered plots. Removal of heterospecific neighbours significantly modified growth responses to environmental manipulations. The positive effect of elevated temperature on E. nigrum was usually more profound on mixed species than on removal plots. The shoot growth of V. vitis-idaea was increased most when warmingand watering were applied to plots of mixed species composition. Theeffect of the removal of companion species in turn depended greatly on environmental manipulations. Following the removal of V. vitis-idaea, E. nigrum generally increased branching, especially on open plots, and it increased the size of current shoots on open irrigated plots. However, when temperature was elevated, removal of V. vitis-idaea had negative effect on shoot growth and mass in E. nigrum. In V. vitis-idaea, current shoot size decreased after removal of E. nigrum on plots where either temperature or precipitation was increased. Only themost favourable conditions, on plots with both warming and watering,eliminated the negative effect of companion species removal on V. vitisida
- Subjects
PLANT growth; PLANT ecology
- Publication
Oikos, 1997, Vol 78, Issue 3, p440
- ISSN
0030-1299
- Publication type
Article