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Chinese Journal of Applied Ecology ›› 2022, Vol. 33 ›› Issue (11): 2907-2914.doi: 10.13287/j.1001-9332.202211.006

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Morphology of Caragana korshinskii seeds across different stand ages in sandy-hilly region of northwest Shanxi Province, China.

GOU Qian-qian1, GAO Min1, ZHANG Yu1, WANG Guo-hua1,2,3*   

  1. 1College of Geographical Sciences, Shanxi Normal University, Taiyuan 030031, China;
    2Key Laboratory of Desert and Desertification, Northwest Institute of Eco-Environment and Resources, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou 730010, China;
    3Linze Inland River Basin Research Station, Northwest Institute of Eco-Environment and Resources, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou 730010, China
  • Received:2022-02-28 Revised:2022-08-29 Online:2022-11-15 Published:2023-05-15

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Abstract: We investigated the morphological characteristics of C. korshinskii seeds with three different sizes under plantations with different stand ages (6, 12, 18, 40 and 50 years old) in the typical sandy-hilly region of northwest Shanxi Province, to explore the restoration potential of artificial vegetation from the perspective of reproduction strategies. The results showed that seed production of C. korshinskii plantation increased with stand age, reaching the maximum (584 grain·plant-1) in 50-year-old stand. Seed length, seed width, and seed shape index decreased with stand age, reaching the minimum (5.09 mm, 2.76 mm and 0.05) in 50-year-old stand. Seed germination percentage showed an upward-downward-upward fluctuating trend, reaching the maximum (97.2%) at 12-year-old stand. Seed production was significantly negatively correlated with seed weight. Seed germination percentage was closely related to seed weight. Seeds with low weight had a low germination percentage and were easier to form a persistent seed bank. In addition, seed production was significantly positively correlated with the height of mother plant, aboveground biomass and belowground biomass, while the shape index of C. korshinskii seeds was significantly negatively correlated with number of new branches. It indicated that with the increases of stand age, the reproduction strategy of C. korshinskii changed from the K strategy with larger seeds in the early stage (6-12 year-old) to the r strategy of small seeds in the later stage (18-50 year-old). Specifically, C. korshinskii kept both the high number and high persistence of seeds by producing a larger number of small and round seeds.

Key words: Caragana korshinskii, natural regeneration, seed morphology, seed production, seed germination