Xia Ke, Turkington Roy, Tan Hong-Yu, Fan Lei
Germplasm Bank of Wild Species, Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming 650201, China.
Botany Department, and Biodiversity Research Centre, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, V6T 1Z4, Canada.
Plant Divers. 2018 Nov 29;40(6):277-283. doi: 10.1016/j.pld.2018.11.004. eCollection 2018 Dec.
is a dominant species of oak in the Asian evergreen broad-leaved forests in southwestern China but seedlings are uncommon and recruitment is rare. Annual acorn production by is variable and the acorns are exposed to a series of mortality risks. Understanding the factors that limit recruitment of the oak requires knowledge of the oak's life cycle from acorn production to germination and seedling establishment. In this study, we first tested the effects of acorn density on establishment of seedlings by placing batches of acorns at different densities throughout the study area. Second, we tested the effects of herbivores on seedling survival by erecting fences around both natural and transplanted seedling populations. Our results show that even though the rate of seedling establishment increases as acorn density increases (for 32-8000 acorns∙m), survival rates of seedlings in the field were generally low (0-0.6%). We show that seedling recruitment of is mainly limited to the acorn stage where 88% of the acorns died from the combined effects of desiccation and predation by weevils () and bark beetles ( sp.). Herbivory results in the death of some seedlings and consequently also affects the recruitment of seedlings of .
是中国西南部亚洲常绿阔叶林的优势橡树物种，但幼苗并不常见，更新也很少见。其每年的橡子产量变化不定，且橡子面临一系列死亡风险。了解限制橡树更新的因素需要掌握从橡子生产到发芽和幼苗建立的橡树生命周期知识。在本研究中，我们首先通过在整个研究区域以不同密度放置一批批橡子来测试橡子密度对幼苗建立的影响。其次，我们通过在自然和移植的幼苗种群周围设置围栏来测试食草动物对幼苗存活的影响。我们的结果表明，尽管随着橡子密度增加（32 - 8000个橡子∙平方米），幼苗建立率有所提高，但田间幼苗的存活率普遍较低（0 - 0.6%）。我们表明，的幼苗更新主要局限于橡子阶段，其中88%的橡子死于干燥以及象鼻虫（）和小蠹虫（种）捕食的综合影响。食草作用导致一些幼苗死亡，因此也影响了的幼苗更新。
