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AOBPreview originally published online on April 27, 2005
Annals of Botany 2005 96(1):69-80; doi:10.1093/aob/mci150
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© The Author 2005. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Annals of Botany Company. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oupjournals.org

Wind-dispersed Seed Deposition Patterns and Seedling Recruitment of Artemisia halodendron in a Moving Sandy Land

FENG-RUI LI1,*, TAO WANG1, AI-SHENG ZHANG1, LI-YA ZHAO1, LING-FEN KANG1 and WEN CHEN1,2

1 Key Laboratory of Desert and Desertification, Cold and Arid Regions Environmental and Engineering Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 260 Donggang West Road, Lanzhou 730000, China and 2 School of Agriculture and Wine, Faculty of Sciences, the University of Adelaide, Roseworthy Campus, Roseworthy, SA 5371, Australia

* For correspondence. E-mail lfengrui{at}vip.163.com

Received: 9 October 2004    Returned for revision: 19 January 2005    Accepted: 25 February 2005    Published electronically: 27 April 2005

• Background and Aims Artemisia halodendron is a native sub-shrub that occurs mainly in moving and semi-fixed sandy lands in Inner Mongolia, China. Information on the spatial patterns of wind-dispersed seed deposition and seedling recruitment of A. halodendron inhabiting moving sandy lands is very limited. The aim of this study was to examine wind-dispersed seed deposition patterns and post-dispersal recruitment of A. halodendron seedlings.

• Methods The spatial patterns of wind-dispersed seed deposition and seedling recruitment of A. halodendron were examined by investigating the numbers of deposited seeds, emerged and surviving seedlings using sampling points at a range of distances from the parent plant in eight compass directions for two consecutive growing seasons.

• Key Results Wind-dispersed seed deposition showed considerable variation between directions and years. Wind transported A. halodendron seeds only a few meters away from the parent plant in all eight directions. Seedling emergence and establishment also showed between-direction and between-year variability, but the spatial pattern of seedling distribution differed from that of seed deposition. Only a very small fraction (<1 %) of the deposited seeds emerged in the field and survived for long enough to be included in our seedling censuses at the end of the growing season.

• Conclusions The spatial variation in wind speed and frequency strongly affects the pattern of seed deposition, although the variation in seed deposition does not determine the spatial pattern of seedling recruitment. Seeds of A. halodendron are not dispersed very well by wind. The low probability of recruitment success for A. halodendron seedlings suggests that this species does not rely on seedling recruitment for its persistence and maintenance of population.

Key words: Artemisia halodendron, Horqin Sandy Land, moving sand dunes, population dynamics, post-dispersal recruitment, recruitment success, sand-stabilizing plant, seed deposition, seedling emergence, seedling survival, wind dispersal


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F.-R. LI, L.-Y. ZHAO, X.-Y. ZHAO, T.-H. ZHANG, and G. LI
The Relative Importance of Pre- and Post-germination Determinants for Recruitment of an Annual Plant Community on Moving Sandy Land
Ann. Bot., December 1, 2005; 96(7): 1215 - 1223.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]


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