Abstract
Key Message
Morphological plasticity helps plants to cope to environmental conditions. Allometric responses of the mangrove Avicennia germinans to increasing salinity are easily detectable when focusing on the top height trees.
Abstract
Several studies show that mangrove trees possess high species- and site-related trait allometry, suggesting large morphological plasticity that might be related to environmental conditions, but the causes of such variation are not clearly understood and systematic quantification is still missing. Both aspects are essential for a mechanistic understanding of the development and functioning of forests. We analyzed the role of salinity in the allometric relations of the mangrove Avicennia germinans, using: (1) the top height trees (trees with the largest diameters at breast height, which reflect forest properties at the maximum use of resources); (2) the slenderness coefficient (which indicates competition and environmental conditions); and (3) the crown to DBH ratio. These standard tools for forest scientists dealing with terrestrial forests are suitable to analyze the plastic responses of mangroves to salinity. First, the top height trees help to recognize structural forest properties that are not detectable when studying the whole stand. Second, we found that at salinities above 55 ‰, trees are less slender and develop wider crowns in relation to DBH than when growing at lower salinities. Our results suggest a significant change in allometric traits in relation to salinity, and reflect the plastic responses of tree traits in response to environmental variation. Understanding the plastic responses of plants to their environment can help to better model, predict, and manage forests in changing environments.
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Author contribution statement
Alejandra G. Vovides: Wrote the paper and was responsible for database management. Contributed in choosing and executing statistical analyses. Juliane Vogt and Uwe Grueters: Field sampling strategies, discussions on manuscript editing, manuscript revisions and contribution in choosing statistical methods. Uta Berger and Jorge López-Portillo: Contributed to designing project, advised on lines of research, data analyses, and manuscript revision. Funding of the study through the CREC project. Armin Kollert: Collected part of the data during the development of his master’s thesis. The data analysis concerning Michailoff (1943) and Thomas (1996) was the main contribution of this co-author to this manuscript. Ronny Peters: Comments and suggestions on trends and ideas concerning data analyses. Ana Laura Lara-Domínguez: Contributed with new salinity data from 2013, suggestions on data analyses and contributed with comments on morphological plasticity.
Acknowledgments
We are grateful to Victor Vasquez from the Institute of Ecology in México (INECOL, A.C.) for his field assistance and tireless devotion to mangrove ecology research and to Andreas Tharang for his valuable methodological expertise on data analysis. This study is a result of the close collaboration between the INECOL and the Technische Universität Dresden through their joint project “Coastal Research Network on Environmental Changes” (CREC), funded by the European Commission to support international cooperation through its 7th Framework Programme. The CREC project is classified as a Marie Curie Action (FP7-PEOPLE-2009-IRSES). The project was also partially supported by the German Research Foundation (DFG, Project Number BE-1960/7-1).
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Communicated by C. Lovelock.
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Vovides, A.G., Vogt, J., Kollert, A. et al. Morphological plasticity in mangrove trees: salinity-related changes in the allometry of Avicennia germinans . Trees 28, 1413–1425 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00468-014-1044-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00468-014-1044-8