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Root suckering patterns in Populus euphratica (Euphrates poplar, Salicaceae)

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Abstract

To understand the spatial structure of monospecific Tugai forests (Xinjiang Province, China) growing as gallery woods nourished by ground water, root suckering in Populus euphratica was studied by a combination of morphological and molecular analyses. Seedlings grow a deep tap root and keep this as adult trees, whereas root suckers never develop a tap root but utilize the horizontally stretching root of their parent trees. The resulting reverse “T” root architecture distinguishes reliably even adult root suckers from generatively grown trees. Due to assimilate input from the root sucker, the distal root (pointing away from the parent tree) becomes thicker soon than its proximal root, which allows determination of the direction of vegetative growth. One stand including 279 young trees germinated from seeds and 267 root suckers was mapped completely, and selected suckers were assigned to parent trees by genotyping with microsatellite DNA. Root suckers develop up to 40 m away from parent trees on horizontal “spacer” roots, usually originating not deeper than 20 cm below surface. Trees begin with root suckering between 10 and 15 years, shortly before reaching flowering age. Cutting experiments indicated reduced survival of young root suckers disconnected from the parent tree. Without a tap root and with a rooting point close to the surface, declining ground water levels should lower the fitness of root suckers even more than that of generatively grown trees.

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Acknowledgments

We wish to thank our Chinese partners from the Department of Environmental resources, Xinjiang University, for help with translation, logistics and their general assistance during the field studies. In particular, the students B. Abula, Sh. Lin, K. Qiongying, W. Yongbin, W. Shan and A. Rozi. N. Abdusalih provided room for laboratory work and helped with critical remarks in the interpretation of root architectures. A special thank is due to Ghalip, our driver during the field work in the Tarim Basin. On the German side (Greifswald University) we are indebted to S. Abel, F. Gahlert, N. Jeschke, and also F. W. Spiegel (University of Arkansas) for help in field work and with tree ring determination. Furthermore we wish to thank V. Liebscher (Department of Biomathematics) for advice with data evaluation; and A. Klahr and S. Fehrenz for advice regarding the laboratory work. Financial support came from grants of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, SCHN 1080/1-1), the VW-Foundation (I/78 636) and the DAAD partnership programe (PPP, D/05/06946).

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  1. Institute of Botany and Landscape Ecology, University of Greifswald, 17489, Greifswald, Germany

    Martin Wiehle, Pascal Eusemann, Niels Thevs & Martin Schnittler

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  1. Martin Wiehle
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  4. Martin Schnittler
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Correspondence to Martin Schnittler.

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Communicated by M. Zwieniecki.

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Wiehle, M., Eusemann, P., Thevs, N. et al. Root suckering patterns in Populus euphratica (Euphrates poplar, Salicaceae). Trees 23, 991–1001 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00468-009-0341-0

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