Limitations on the recruitment of the rare sand shrubby legume Eremosparton songoricum (Fabaceae) in Gurbantunggut Desert, China |
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| Authors: | DaoYuan ZHANG HuiLiang LIU Xiang SHI JianCheng WANG YongKuan ZHANG |
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| Institution: | 1.Key Laboratory of Biogeography and Bioresource in Arid Land, Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Urumqi 830011, China;2.Turpan Eremophytes Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Turpan 838008, China;3.Graduate University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China;4.College of Agriculture, Shihezi University, Shihezi 832000, China |
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| Abstract: | Eremosparton songoricum, a rare and endemic sand dune plant, appears to be experiencing recruitment failure. The structure of five populations from the Gurbantunggut Desert, China, was investi-gated for recruitment patterns, and two of them were examined for flowering, pollination and seed germi-nation limits on regeneration. The results showed that total 150 seedlings only occurred on line transects in riverside Dure population, but they all died half a month later; no seedlings occurred in other four hinterland desert populations indicating recruitment was a failure at all populations although flowers were plentiful.Reproductive success depends on pollinators. Nectar is 'reward' for pollinators, with 0.06 μL-0.12 μL and 0.15 μL-0.35 μL per flower in Dure and Kabu populations, respectively, in continuously two secreting days.Spontaneous self pollination is rare with nearly zero fruit production. Geitonogamous self pollination is predominant with 14.47% fruit set. Seed mass in the riverside Dure population was significantly greater than that in other hinterland desert populations. Consequently, the Dure population exhibited a significantly higher germination rate (about 90%) than those in other populations (about 30%). Results suggested that recruitment failure of E. songoricum is not due to flower shortage, pollination limitation, or poor seed ger-mination but environmental pressure and/or human disturbance. |
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| Keywords: | seedling recruitment sand dunes regeneration population structure pollination ecology |
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