Abstract
Degradation processes affect a vast area of arid and semi-arid lands around the world and damage the environment and people’s health. Degradation processes are driven by human productive activities that cause direct and indirect effects on natural resources, such as species extinction at regional scale, reduction and elimination of vegetation cover, soil erosion, etc. In this context, ecological rehabilitation is an important tool to recover key aspects of the degraded ecosystem. Rehabilitation trials rely on the use of native plant species with characteristics that allow them to obtain high survival and growth rates. The aim of this work was to assess the survival and growth of native woody species in degraded areas of northeastern Patagonia and relate them to plant functional traits and environmental variables. We observed high early and late survival rates, and growth rates in Prosopis flexuosa DC. var. depressa F.A. Roig and Schinus johnstonii F.A. Barkley, and low values in Condalia microphylla Cav. and Geoffroea decorticans (Gillies ex Hook. & Arn.) Burkart. Early survival rates were positively associated with specific leaf area (SLA) and precipitation, but negatively associated with wood density, the maximum mean temperature of the warmest month and the minimum mean temperature of the coldest month. Late survival rates were positively associated with SLA and soil organic matter, but negatively associated with plant height and precipitation. The temperature had a positive effect on late survival rates once the plants overcame the critical period of the first summer after they were transplanted to the field. Prosopis flexuosa and S. johnstonii were the most successful species in our study. This could be due to their functional traits that allow these species to acclimatize to the local environment. Further research should focus on C. microphylla and G. decorticans to determine how they relate to productive conditions, acclimation to environmental stress, auto-ecology and potential use in ecological rehabilitation trials.
Highlights
Degradation processes affect vast areas of arid and semi-arid lands around the world, which are inhabited by 2.5×109 people (UNCCD, 2011)
We developed a structural equation model (SEM) based on hypothesized relationships among environmental conditions, plant functional traits and species responses
3.1 Early survival rate Early survival rate was estimated seven months after the plants were transplanted to the restoration trial sites
Summary
Degradation processes affect vast areas of arid and semi-arid lands around the world, which are inhabited by 2.5×109 people (UNCCD, 2011). Ecosystem degradation is caused by human activities, evidenced by the loss of soil fertility and vegetation cover, soil erosion and the diminishing of land productivity (Abraham et al, 2009; Vallejo et al, 2009; Cortina et al, 2011) In this scenario, ecological rehabilitation is a key strategy to recover degraded ecosystems (Aronson et al, 1993; Maestre et al, 2001; DelgadoBaquerizo et al, 2013). Ecological rehabilitation involves interventions on the natural system to return some of its lost structural and functional attributes To achieve this objective, people should remove the disturbance factors and take actions to increase the vegetation cover (Aronson et al, 1993; Hobbs and Kramer, 2008). It is desirable to initiate ecological rehabilitation processes using genetic material from the intervened area because native plant species are adapted to the dominant environmental conditions (Aronson et al, 1993; Cortina et al, 2006; Hobbs and Kramer, 2008)
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