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Savanna soil fertility limits growth but not survival of tropical forest tree seedlings

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Abstract

Background and Aims

Cerradão (Brazilian woodland savannas) and seasonally dry forests (SDF) from southeastern Brazil occur under the same climate but are remarkably distinct in species composition. The objective of this study was to evaluate the role of soil origin in the initial growth and distribution of SDF and Cerradão species.

Methods

We conducted a greenhouse experiment growing Cerradão and SDF tree seedlings over their soil and the soil of the contrasting vegetation type. We evaluated soil nutrient availability and seedling survivorship, growth and leaf functional traits.

Results

Despite the higher nutrient availability in SDF soils, soil origin did not affect seedling survivorship. The three SDF species demonstrated home-soil advantage, enhanced growth with increasing soil nutrient availability and had higher growth rates than Cerradão species, even on Cerradão soils. Growth of Cerradão seedlings was not higher on Cerradão soil and, overall, was not positively correlated with soil nutrient availability.

Conclusions

SDF species are fast-growing species while Cerradão trees tend to be slow-growing species. Although savanna soil reduces growth of forest species, our findings suggest that soil chemical attributes, alone, does not exclude the occurrence of SDF seedlings in Cerradão and vice-versa.

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Abbreviations

LAR:

leaf area ratio

LD:

leaf tissue density

LMR:

leaf mass ratio

LT:

leaf thickness

NAR:

net assimilation rate

RGR:

relative growth rate

SDF:

seasonally dry forest

SLA:

specific leaf area

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by a Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) doctoral scholarship and by a Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) “sandwich” program scholarship (200845/2008-0) from the Government of Brazil, for R.A.G. Viani. Authors are thankful for Pedro Brancalion for helpful comments in an earlier version of the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Plant Biology, Biology Institute, State University of Campinas, CP 6109, Campinas-SP, 13083-970, Brazil

    Ricardo A. G. Viani & Rafael S. Oliveira

  2. Department of Biological Sciences, “Luiz de Queiroz” College of Agriculture, University of São Paulo, CP 9, Piracicaba-SP, 13418-900, Brazil

    Ricardo R. Rodrigues

  3. Department of Integrative Biology, University of California, Berkeley, CA, 94720, USA

    Todd E. Dawson

Authors
  1. Ricardo A. G. Viani
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  2. Ricardo R. Rodrigues
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  3. Todd E. Dawson
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  4. Rafael S. Oliveira
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Correspondence to Ricardo A. G. Viani.

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Responsible Editor: Harry Olde Venterink.

Appendix

Appendix

Table 5 Mean (± SE) values for plant traits of tree seedlings grown on a greenhouse experiment with Cerradão and SDF soil. Within lines, means followed by different letters indicate significant differences between species (P < 0.05, two-way Anova, followed by Tukey’s post-hoc test). SDF species: BR: Balfourodendron riedelianum; CE: Cariniana estrellensis; CT: Centrolobium tomentosum. Cerradão species: DM: Dimorphandra mollis; MA: Machaerium acutifolium; SO: Stryphnodendron obovatum
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Viani, R.A.G., Rodrigues, R.R., Dawson, T.E. et al. Savanna soil fertility limits growth but not survival of tropical forest tree seedlings. Plant Soil 349, 341–353 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-011-0879-7

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