PARENT SESSION
Organized Oral Session 40: Understory and epiphytic vegetation as indicators of the ecological integrity of managed forests
Organizer(s): S Haeussler, S Gachet, Y Bergeron, and E MacDonald
Thursday, August 11, 8:00 AM - 11:30 AM, Meeting Room 510a, Level 5, Palais des congrès de Montréal

Understory of jackpine plantations: Plant functional groups differences depending on soil nutrients and previous land use.

GACHET, Sophie^{1, 2}, LEDUC, Alain¹, BERGERON, Yves^{1, 2}, ¹ UQAM (Université du Québec à Montréal), Montréal, QC, Canada² UQAT (Université du Québec en Abitibi-Témiscamingue), Rouyn-Noranda, QC, Canada

ABSTRACT- The aim of this study is to evaluate and compare how the past land use (here: agriculture and forestry) of sites has impacted the floristic diversity now observed in the understory of jackpine plantations, in similar abiotic conditions and of similar range of ages. The sampling involved floristic inventories in both sets of conditions. Plant traits are used to built functional groups, allowing to describe synthetically the observed patterns. Also, this method provides another point of view on our data: a functional diversity understanding. The use of probes-PRS gave indications on the nutrients available for plants: thus, fine scale relationships between given plants and given nutrients are investigated. It was also found that plantations on abandoned farmlands are very different than plantations on previous forests (reafforestations), considering flora as well as nutrients. In any case, the two types of plantations are unlikely to become floristically the same in the future. These results are to be taken into account if we want to convert abandonned open lands into forests, trying to recreate as much as possible the natural forests biodiversity.

Key words: plant traits, biodiversity, ecological value, ion-exchange membranes