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What drives patchiness in palmiet wetlands?

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Abstract

Wetland communities are shaped by high levels of stress, disturbance and competition. Using South African palmiet wetlands as a case study (Prionium serratum dominated valley-bottom wetlands), we explore whether autogenic or allogenic succession is the dominant process driving community dynamics in valley-bottom wetlands in drylands. Several wetland rehabilitation programmes in South Africa use the dominant wetland species palmiet (P. serratum) as a pioneer to facilitate recolonization. However research is needed on palmiet wetland dynamics and formation to guide these restoration efforts. We explore vegetation patterns by analyzing which environmental parameters drive dominance of palmiet, resulting in the characteristic patchiness of palmiet wetlands, and which plant functional traits account for this. In 20 plots from three palmiet wetlands distributed across the Cape Floristic Region of South Africa, key soil, groundwater and vegetation parameters, as well as community composition were measured. Twenty-two dominant species were selected and 13 functional traits measured. Soil pH and relative groundwater depth were the main environmental parameters driving community assembly in palmiet wetlands. Palmiet-dominated communities were characterized by greater stem diameter, leaf length–width ratio, leaf area and cellulose and lignin concentration compared to fynbos communities. These traits suggest adaptations to disturbances such as fires (thicker stems) and floods (long, thin leaves, flexible shoots and thicker stems). We propose three hypotheses of palmiet wetland development which shed light on palmiet wetland restoration and highlight gaps for future research.

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Acknowledgements

A.J.R. gratefully acknowledges the following organizations for funding: The Erasmus Mundus Programme (European Commission), Research Fund of the University of Antwerp (Belgium) and the National Research Foundation (South Africa). KJE acknowledges support by the National Research Foundation of South Africa (Grant Number 103841). Thank you to Byron-Mahieu van der Linde for assistance in the field. Research was conducted under permit number: 0052-AAA008-00019 (CapeNature).

Funding

Partial financial support was received from the Erasmus Mundus Programme (European Commission), the PhD Research Fund of the University of Antwerp (Belgium), an international PhD Scholarship through the National Research Foundation (South Africa) and the National Research Foundation of South Africa (Grant Number 103841).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Ecosystem Management Research Group (ECOBE), Department of Biology, University of Antwerp, Universiteitsplein 1C, 2610, Wilrijk, Belgium

    A. J. Rebelo & P. Meire

  2. Department of Conservation Ecology and Entomology, Stellenbosch University, Private Bag X01, Matieland, Stellenbosch, 7602, South Africa

    A. J. Rebelo & K. J. Esler

  3. University of KwaZulu Natal, Durban, South Africa

    E. Sieben

  4. Centre for Invasion Biology (C.I.B), Stellenbosch, South Africa

    K. J. Esler

Authors
  1. A. J. Rebelo
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  2. E. Sieben
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  3. P. Meire
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  4. K. J. Esler
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Contributions

AJR, KJE, PM conceived the study, AJR performed data analysis, AJR wrote the manuscript and KJE, PM, ES, contributed and edited it.

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Correspondence to A. J. Rebelo.

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Appendix

Appendix

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Table 6 The percentage cover of palmiet in each of the plots from three palmiet wetlands, South Africa, and the mean value for 2014 and 2015 combined
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Table 7 The 13 functional traits collected for the 22 dominant wetland species
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Table 8 Statistical results of the linear mixed models for community parameters
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Table 9 Results of the SIMPER analysis comparing palmiet and fynbos communities in palmiet wetlands for 2014 and 2015
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Table 10 Full names of species used in the detrended correspondence analysis
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Fig. 8
figure 8

Detrended correspondence analysis (DCA) of the plant communities in fynbos and palmiet patches in three South African palmiet wetlands sampled in March 2015. Fynbos sites are in orange, palmiet in green. Symbols: ▲ Theewaterskloof, ■ Goukou, ● Kromme. Species names are given in black, and + indicates species with a lower abundance that are masked by other labels. Parameters that were interesting or significantly different (bold) between palmiet and fynbos wetland patches were overlain and are indicated by the arrows. CWM community weighted mean, LLWR leaf length–width ratio, Lig lignin, Cel cellulose, SD stem diameter, LA leaf area, Si silicon, No_sp number of species, Veg.K K in vegetation, Veg.Mg Mg in vegetation, MicrobialC microbial carbon, CEC cation exchange capacity, SWC soil water content. Stippled circles encompass sites from fynbos and palmiet communities. Soil parameters are in brown, vegetation composition in green, functional diversity indices in blue. For full species names see Table 9

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Rebelo, A.J., Sieben, E., Meire, P. et al. What drives patchiness in palmiet wetlands?. Wetlands Ecol Manage 30, 785–811 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11273-021-09853-1

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