Abstract
In mid-latitude mountains, snowbeds often consist of small, scattered alpine belt units that host many plants of high biogeographic interest. Because most snowbed species are weak competitors, it is important to study the dissemination and persistence of their seeds to better understand their population dynamics. This study analyzed the snowbed flora of the Central Pyrenees using 11 morpho-functional traits, mostly related to seed function. The seeds of most plants found in snowbeds are small or very small, they have ovoid to elliptical shapes, and have no attributes related to dispersal. When only snowbed specialists (i.e., with a phytosociological optimum in snowbed habitats) are considered, three strategy groups become apparent: i) annuals or pauciennials producing abundant small seeds prone to accumulate in the soil; ii) chamaephytes or hemicryptophytes that produce anemochorous seeds; and iii) other perennials – mainly hemicryptophytes – with no specific seed traits. In the first two groups, the extant populations are maintained either by permanent soil seed banks or by means of vegetative persistence and dispersal. The lack of specific traits in the third group suggests that these plants could be more sensitive to direct competitive exclusion from non-chionophilous species under a changing climatic scenario in which snowbeds tend to disappear.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Anderson M (2001) A new method for non-parametric multivariate analysis of variance. Austral Ecol 26:32–46
Björk RG, Molau U (2007) Ecology of alpine snowbeds and the impact of global change. Arctic Antarctic Alpine Res 37:444–453
Bojňanský V, Fargašová A (2007) Atlas of seeds and fruits of central and east-European flora. The Carpathian mountains region. Springer Verlag, Dordrecht
Bolòs O, Vigo J, Masalles, Ninot JM (2005) Flora manual dels Països Catalans. Pòrtic, Barcelona
Braun-Blanquet J (1948) L a végétation alpine des Pyrenées Orientales. CSIC, Barcelona
Carrillo E, Ninot JM (1992) Flora i vegetació de les valls d’Espot i de Boí. Arxius Sec Cièn 99(1):1–474; (2):1–350
Castroviejo S et al. (eds) (1986–2009) Flora iberica, vols. 1–8, 10, 13–15, 18, 21. CSIC, Madrid
Cerabolini B, Ceriani RM, Caccianiga M, De Andreis R, Raimond B (2003) Seed size, shape and persistence in soil: a test on Italian flora from Alps to Mediterranean coasts. Seed Sci Res 13:75–85
Chambers JC, MacMahon JA, Haefner JH (1991) Seed entrapment in alpine ecosystems: effects of soil particle size and diaspore morphology. Ecology 72:1668–1677
Cherednichenko OV (2004) Plant life forms. In Onipchenko VG (ed) Alpine ecosystems in the northwest Caucasus. Geobotany 29, Kluwer Academic Publishers: Dordrecht, pp 77–91
Choler P (2005) Consistent shifts in alpine plant traits along a mesotopographical gradient. Arctic Antarctic Alpine Res 39:34–43
Esteban P, Prohom MJ, Aguilar E, Mestre O (2010) Evolució recent de la temperatura i la precipitació a Andorra (1934–2008): resultats anuals i estacionals. La revista del CENMA (Andorra) 5:22–33
Fenner M, Thompson K (2005) The ecology of seeds. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Font X (2009) Mòdul Flora, Banc de Dades de Biodiversitat de Catalunya (BDBC). Available at: http://biodiver.bio.ub.es/biocat/homepage.html
Galen C, Stanton ML (1995) Responses of snowbed plant species to changes in growing-season length. Ecology 76:1546–1557
Illa E, Carrillo E, Ninot JM (2006) Patterns of plant traits in Pyrenean alpine vegetation. Flora 201:528–546
Komárková V (1993) Vegetation type hierarchies and landform disturbance in Arctic Alaska and alpine Colorado with emphasis in snowpatches. Vegetatio 106:109–120
Körner C (2003) Alpine plant life. Functional plant ecology of high mountain ecosystems. Springer Verlag, Berlin
Kudo G, Nordenhäll U, Molau U (1999) Effects of snowmelt timing on leaf traits, leaf production, and shoot growth of alpine plants: comparisons along a snowmelt gradient in northern Sweden. Ecoscience 6:439–450
Liu K, Eastwood RJ, Flynn S, Turner RM, Stuppy WH (2008) Seed Information Database (release 7.1, May 2008). Available at: http://www.kew.org/data/sid
Lluent A (2007) Estudi de l’estructura i funcionament de les comunitats quionòfiles als Pirineus en relació a la variació dels factors ambientals. PhD Thesis, University of Barcelona: Barcelona
Lluent A, Illa E, Carrillo E (2006) Inventario, cartografía y monitorización de la vegetación de los neveros del Parque Nacional de Aigüestortes i Estany de Sant Maurici. Bull Soc Hist Nat Toulouse 141:131–137
López-Moreno JI, Goyette S, Beniston M (2009) Impact of climate change on snowpack in the Pyrenees: Horizontal spatial variability and vertical gradients. J Hydrol 374:384–396
Marcante S, Schwienbacher E, Erschbamer B (2009) Genesis of a soil seed bank on a primary succession in the Central Alps (Ötztal, Austria). Flora 204:434–444
Molau U, Larsson EL (2000) Seed rain and seed bank along an alpine altitudinal gradient in Swedish Lapland. Canad J Bot 78:728–747
Navarro T, El Oualidi J, Taleb MS, Pascual V, Cabezudo B (2009) Dispersal traits and dispersal patterns in an oro-Mediterranean thorn cushion plant formation of the eastern High Atlas, Morocco. Flora 204:658–672
Oksanen J (2009) Vegan package: R functions for vegetation ecologists. R development core team. Available at: http://vegan.r-forge.r-project.org/
Onipchenko VG (ed) (2004) Alpine ecosystems in the northwest Caucasus. Geobotany 29, Kluwer Academic Publishers: Dordrecht
Onipchenko VG, Semenova GV (2004) Population strategies. In Onipchenko VG (ed) Alpine ecosystems in the northwest Caucasus. Geobotany 29, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, pp 212–222
R Development Core Team (2011) R: a language and environment for statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna
Scherff EJ, Galen C, Stanton ML (1994) Seed dispersal, seedling survival and habitat affinity in a snowbed plant: limits to the distribution of the snow buttercup, Ranunculus adoneus. Oikos 69:405–413
Schöb C, Kammer PM, Choler P, Veit H (2009) Small-scale plant species distribution in snowbeds and its sensitivity to climate change. Pl Ecol 200:91–104
Schöb C, Kammer PM, Kikvidze Z, Choler P, von Felten S, Veit H (2010) Counterbalancing effects of competition for resources and facilitation against grazing in alpine snowbed communities. Oikos 119:1571–1580
Semenova GV (2004) Soil seed banks. In Onipchenko VG (ed) Alpine ecosystems in the northwest Caucasus. Geobotany 29, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, pp 194–212
Šerá B, Šerý M (2004) Number and weight of seeds and reproductive strategies of herbaceous plants. Folia Geobot 39:27–40
Thompson K (1993a) Morphology and colour. In Hendry GAF, Grime JP (eds) Methods in comparative ecology. A laboratory manual. Chapman & Hall, London, pp 194–196
Thompson K (1993b) Persistence in soil. In Hendry GAF, Grime JP (eds) Methods in comparative ecology. A laboratory manual. Chapman & Hall, London, pp 199–202
Volkova EV, Onipchenko VG, Blinnikov MS (2005) Reciprocal transplantations in alpine plant communities. In Onipchenko VG (ed) Alpine ecosystems in the northwest Caucasus. Geobotany 29, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, pp 223–236
Welling P, Tolvanen A, Laine K (2004) The alpine soil seed bank in relation to field seedlings and standing vegetation in subarctic Finland. Arctic Antarctic Alpine Res 36:229–238
Zhang ST, Du GZ, Chen JK (2004) Seed size in relation to phylogeny, growth form and longevity in a subalpine meadow on the east of the Tibetan plateau. Folia Geobot 39:129–142
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Plant nomenclature Bolòs et al. (2005)
Electronic supplementary material
Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.
ESM 1
(PDF 111 kb)
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Ninot, J.M., Grau, O., Carrillo, E. et al. Functional Plant Traits and Species Assemblage in Pyrenean Snowbeds. Folia Geobot 48, 23–38 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12224-012-9138-9
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12224-012-9138-9