Inter- and intra-annual patterns of seed rain in the black spruce stands of Quebec, Canada

doi:10.3832/ifor2145-009

Inter- and intra-annual patterns of seed rain in the black spruce stands of Quebec, Canada

Sergio Rossi^(1-2-3) , Hubert Morin⁽¹⁾, François Gionest⁽¹⁾, Danielle Laprise⁽¹⁾

iForest - Biogeosciences and Forestry, Volume 10, Issue 1, Pages 189-195 (2016)
doi: https://doi.org/10.3832/ifor2145-009
Published: Dec 13, 2016 - Copyright © 2016 SISEF

Research Articles

PDF Version

Full Text

Citation

Geo-mapping

Divergent reproductive strategies of tree species generate differences in the dynamics of seed production and dispersion. The spatial and temporal variability in seed rain abundance and viability was monitored during the period 2000-2007 in four boreal stands in Quebec, Canada. The aim was to compare the inter- and intra-annual patterns of seed dispersal between species with diverging adaptive characteristics and reproductive strategies by testing the hypothesis that sympatric species can exhibit different patterns of seed dispersal according to specific ecological adaptations. The coefficient of variation (CV), representing the inter-annual variability in seed rain, was close to or higher than 1 in balsam fir (Abies balsamea [L.] P. Mill.) and white birch (Betula papyrifera Marsh.) and confirmed the mast seeding habit of the two species. In contrast, CV in black spruce (Picea mariana [Mill.] BSP) ranged between 0.24 and 0.54, indicating a more homogeneous inter-annual amount of seed dispersal because of its semiserotinous cones that preserve seeds for an indefinite period of time. The species showed divergent intra-annual patterns of seed dispersal. Most seed dispersal of the companion species was observed in September-November, while black spruce concentrated seed rain in spring, when the proportion of germinated seeds was higher. Boreal stands experience annual seed rains constituted by a gradual dispersal of seeds of different ages and originating from cones belonging to multiple cohorts. However, asynchronous seed rains in terms of quantity and quality can occur if companion species are associated to the dominant black spruce.

Keywords

Balsam Fir, Fire, Masting, Regeneration, Reproduction, Seed Viability, Serotiny, White Birch

Authors’ address

(1)

Département des Sciences Fondamentales, Université du Québec à Chicoutimi, 555 Boulevard de l’Université, Chicoutimi (QC), G7H2B1 (Canada)

(2)

Key Laboratory of Vegetation Restoration and Management of Degraded Ecosystems, South China Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 723 Xingke Road, Tianhe District, Guangzhou 510650 (China)

(3)

Provincial Key Laboratory of Applied Botany, South China Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 723 Xingke Road, Tianhe District, Guangzhou 510650 (China)

Corresponding author

Sergio Rossi
sergio.rossi@uqac.ca

Citation

Rossi S, Morin H, Gionest F, Laprise D (2016). Inter- and intra-annual patterns of seed rain in the black spruce stands of Quebec, Canada. iForest 10: 189-195. - doi: 10.3832/ifor2145-009

Academic Editor

Gianluca Piovesan

Paper history

Received: Jun 20, 2016
Accepted: Oct 18, 2016

First online: Dec 13, 2016
Publication Date: Feb 28, 2017
Publication Time: 1.87 months

Open Access

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.

Breakdown by View Type

(Waiting for server response...)

Article Usage

Total Article Views: 38696
(from publication date up to now)

Breakdown by View Type
HTML Page Views: 33072
Abstract Page Views: 1815
PDF Downloads: 2814
Citation/Reference Downloads: 41
XML Downloads: 954

Web Metrics
Days since publication: 2685
Overall contacts: 38696
Avg. contacts per week: 100.88

Article Citations

Article citations are based on data periodically collected from the Clarivate Web of Science web site
(last update: Feb 2023)

Total number of cites (since 2017): 4
Average cites per year: 0.57

(no Plumx Metrics available for this paper)

Publication Metrics

by Dimensions ^©

Articles citing this article

List of the papers citing this article based on CrossRef Cited-by.

(1)

Boiffin J, Munson AD (2013)
Three large fire years threaten resilience of closed crown black spruce forests in eastern Canada. Ecosphere 4 (5): art56.
CrossRef | Gscholar

(2)

Bouchard M, Pothier D, Gauthier S (2008)
Fire return intervals and tree species succession in the North Shore region of eastern Quebec. Canadian Journal of Forest Research 38: 1621-1633.
CrossRef | Gscholar

(3)

Brown CD, Johnstone JF (2012)
Once burned, twice shy: repeat fires reduce seed availability and alter substrate contraints on Picea mariana regeneration. Forest Ecology and Management 266: 34-41.
CrossRef | Gscholar

(4)

Charron I, Greene DF (2002)
Post-wildfire seedbeds and tree establishment in the southern mixedwood boreal forest. Canadian Journal of Forest Research 32: 1607-1615.
CrossRef | Gscholar

(5)

Farmer RE (1997)
Seed ecophysiology of temperate and boreal zone forest trees. St. Lucie Press, Delray Beach, FL, USA, pp. 253.
Online | Gscholar

(6)

Gärtner SM, Lieffers VJ, Macdonald SE (2011)
Ecology and management of natural regeneration of white spruce in the boreal forest. Environmental Reviews 19: 461-478.
CrossRef | Gscholar

(7)

Greene DF, Johnson EA (1999)
Modelling recruitment of Populus tremuloides, Pinus banksiana, and Picea mariana following fire in the mixedwood boreal forest. Canadian Journal of Forest Research 29: 462-473.
CrossRef | Gscholar

(8)

Greene DF, Zasada JC, Sirois L, Kneeshaw D, Morin H, Charron I, Simard MJ (1999)
A review of the regeneration dynamics of North American boreal forest tree species. Canadian Journal of Forest Research 29: 824-839.
CrossRef | Gscholar

(9)

Haavisto VF, Fleming RL, Skeates DA (1988)
Potential and actual yields of seed from black spruce cones. Forestry Chronicle 64: 32-34.
CrossRef | Gscholar

(10)

Harper K, Bergeron Y, Drapeau P, Gauthier S, De Grandpré L (2006)
Changes in spatial pattern of trees and snags during structural development in Picea mariana boreal forests. Journal of Vegetation Science 17: 535-546.
CrossRef | Gscholar

(11)

Hesketh M, Greene DF, Pounden E (2009)
Early establishment of conifer recruits in the northern Rocky Mountains as a function of postfire duff depth. Canadian Journal of Forest Research 39: 2059-2064.
CrossRef | Gscholar

(12)

Ibarzabal J (1994)
Réservoir de graines des sols de sapinières boréales au nord du lac Saint-Jean [Seed reservoir of boreal fir stands soils north of Lac Saint-Jean]. Master thesis, Université du Québec à Chicoutimi, Chicoutimi, Canada, pp. 81. [in French]
Online | Gscholar

(13)

Johnstone JF, Hollingsworth TN, Chapin III FS, Mack MC (2010)
Changes in fire regime break the legacy lock on successional trajectories in Alaskan boreal forest. Global Change Biology 16: 1281-1295.
CrossRef | Gscholar

(14)

Kelly D (1994)
The evolutionary ecology of mast seeding. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 9: 465-470.
CrossRef | Gscholar

(15)

Kelly D, Sork VL (2002)
Mast seeding in perennial plants: why, how, where? Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 33: 427-447.
CrossRef | Gscholar

(16)

Koenig WD, Knops JMH (2000)
Patterns of annual seed production by Northern Hemisphere trees: a global perspective. The American Naturalist 155: 59-69.
CrossRef | Gscholar

(17)

Mencuccini M, Piussi P, Zanzi Sulli A (1995)
Thirty years of seed production in a subalpine Norway spruce forest: patterns of temporal and spatial variation. Forest Ecology and Management 76: 109-125.
CrossRef | Gscholar

(18)

Messaoud Y, Bergeron Y, Asselin H (2007)
Reproductive potential of balsam fir (Abies balsamea), white spruce (Picea glauca), and black spruce (P. mariana) at the ecotone between mixedwood and coniferous forests in the boreal zone of western Quebec. American Journal of Botany 94: 746-754.
CrossRef | Gscholar

(19)

Pham AT, De Grandpré L, Gauthier S, Bergeron Y (2004)
Gap dynamics and replacement patterns in gaps of the northeastern boreal forest of Quebec. Canadian Journal of Forest Research 34: 353-364.
CrossRef | Gscholar

(20)

Qi M, Scarratt JB (1998)
Effect of harvesting method on seed bank dynamics in a boreal mixedwood forest in northwestern Ontario. Canadian Journal of Botany 76: 872-883.
CrossRef | Gscholar

(21)

Roland CA, Schmidt JH, Johnstone JF (2014)
Climate sensitivity of reproduction in a mast-seeding boreal conifer across its distributional range from lowland to treeline forests. Oecologia 174: 665-677.
CrossRef | Gscholar

(22)

Rossi S, Tremblay M-J, Morin H, Levasseur V (2009)
Stand structure and dynamics of Picea mariana on the northern border of the natural closed boreal forest in Quebec, Canada. Canadian Journal of Forest Research 39: 2307-2318.
CrossRef | Gscholar

(23)

Rossi S, Morin H, Deslauriers A (2011)
Multi-scale influence of snowmelt on xylogenesis of black spruce. Arctic, Antarctic, and Alpine Research 43: 457-464.
CrossRef | Gscholar

(24)

Rossi S, Morin H, Gionest F, Laprise D (2012a)
Episodic recruitment of the seedling bank in balsam fir and white spruce. American Journal of Botany 99: 1-9.
CrossRef | Gscholar

(25)

Rossi S, Morin H, Laprise D, Gionest F (2012b)
Testing masting mechanisms of boreal forest species at different stand densities. Oikos 121: 665-674.
CrossRef | Gscholar

(26)

Rossi S, Bousquet J (2014)
The bud break process and its variation among local populations of boreal black spruce. Frontiers in Plant Science 5: 574.
CrossRef | Gscholar

(27)

Rossi S (2015)
Local adaptations and climate change: converging sensitivity of bud break in black spruce provenances. International Journal of Biometeorology 59: 827-835.
CrossRef | Gscholar

(28)

Silvertown JW (1980)
The evolutionary ecology of mast seeding in trees. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 14: 235-250.
CrossRef | Gscholar

(29)

Skeates DA, Haavisto VF (1995)
Heavier black spruce seeds produce more vigorous seedlings. Technical Note no. 31, Frontline - Forestry Research Applications, Canadian Forest Service, Sault Ste. Marie, Canada, pp. 4.
Online | Gscholar

(30)

Snedecor GW, Cochran WG (1980)
Statistical methods. The Iowa State University Press, Ames, IA, USA, pp. 507.
Gscholar

(31)

Viereck LA, Johnson WF (1990)
Picea mariana (Mill.) B.S.P., black spruce. In: “Silvics of North America, Vol 1: Conifers” (Burns RM, Honkala BH eds). USDA Forest Service, Washington, DC, USA, pp. 675.
Gscholar

(32)

Viglas JN, Brown CD, Johnstone JF (2013)
Age and size effects on seed productivity of northern black spruce. Canadian Journal of Forest Research 43: 534-543.
CrossRef | Gscholar

(33)

Wirth C, Lichstein JW, Dushoff J, Chen A, Chapin III FS (2008)
White spruce meets black spruce: dispersal, postfire establishment, and growth in a warming climate. Ecological Monographs 78: 489-505.
CrossRef | Gscholar

(34)

Zasada JC, Sharik TL, Nygren M (1992)
The reproductive process in boreal forest trees. In: “A systems analysis of the global boreal forest” (Shugart HH, Leemans R, Bonan GB eds). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, pp. 85-125.
CrossRef | Gscholar

iForest - Biogeosciences and Forestry

Contents

Search

Journal Info

Journal Subjects and Fields

For Authors

For Reviewers

For Readers

SISEF Publishing

Search iForest Contents