The response of male and female black poplar (Populus nigra L. subspecies betulifolia (Pursh) W. Wettst.) cuttings to different water table depths and sediment types: implications for flow management and river corridor biodiversity
✍ Scribed by Francine M. R. Hughes; Nadia Barsoum; Keith S. Richards; Mark Winfield; Adrian Hayes
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 2000
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 808 KB
- Volume
- 14
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0885-6087
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
Management of river ¯ows has altered the pattern of ¯ood arrival times and reduced their frequency and duration on many European ¯oodplains. Floodplain tree species depend on ¯oods both to provide new sites for their regeneration and to recharge water tables at various depths in the rooting zone. A reduction in ¯oods is one factor that has led to loss of river corridor biodiversity, with early successional tree species from the Salicaceae being particularly adversely aected. Members of the Salicaceae are dioecious and it is possible that the males and females of these species have measurably dierent water table requirements, which might lead to spatial segregation of the sexes on a ¯oodplain. This paper describes an investigation that was carried out into the response of male and female black poplar (Populus nigra L. subspecies betulifolia (Pursh) W. Wettst.) to dierent soil moisture conditions. An experiment was set up on an alluvial island in the River Great Ouse (UK) in which cuttings of male and female black poplar were grown in dierent sediment types with dierent water table levels. The experiment was carried out over two ®eld seasons in 1997 and 1998. Results showed that females tended to prefer wetter and more nutrient-rich sites than males but that there was considerable overlap in their requirements. A complementary genetic study showed very little genetic variation in the experimental population, which may also partially explain the relatively low level of variation between the two sexes found in the study. It is suggested that some limited spatial segregation of the sexes does occur in response to soil moisture availability and that river ¯ow management which aims to maintain or increase river corridor biodiversity may need to take this into account.