Regional Environmental Gradients Influence Ecophysiological Responses of Dominant Coastal Dune Plants to Changes in Local Conditions

Abstract

ABSTRACT Fidalgo, F.; Santos, A.; Pimenta, S.; Marques, J., and Honrado, J., 2014. Regional environmental gradients influence ecophysiological responses of dominant coastal dune plants to changes in local conditions. Coastal dunes are dynamic systems exposed to multiple environmental changes; therefore, specific, sensitive, and cost-efficient indicators are needed for ecological assessment and monitoring. We addressed whether biochemical indicators of plant physiological stress could provide a complementary approach to classic disturbance indicators for identifying dune areas undergoing ecological change. We hypothesized that disturbance related to a shift from (meta-) stability to erosive dynamics would promote increased stress on foredune plants, which would exhibit adaptive physiological responses that could be captured through standard biochemical tests. Such responses would anticipate other reported responses of foredune communities, such as loss of facilitation capacity or decrease of species richne...