PARENT SESSION
Contributed Oral Session 40: Forest Understories
Tuesday, August 9, 8:00 AM - 11:30 AM, Meeting Room 514 A, Level 5, Palais des congrès de Montréal
Phytochemistry of Scots pine contributes to understorey assemblage structure.
Pakeman, Robin*,1, Beaton, Joan1, Thoss, Vera1, Lennon, Jack1, Sim, Dave1, Iason, Glenn1, 1 Macaulay Institute, Aberdeen, United Kingdom
ABSTRACT- We have previously shown that the species richness of understorey vegetation under individual trees in a Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris ) dominated woodland is correlated to the diversity of monoterpenes in the tree's canopy (Iason et al. Ecology Letters, in press). This paper contains further analyses of these data using variance partitioning and generalised linear modelling to demonstrate that the phenotype of Scots pine plays a role in structuring understorey vegetation patterns. Variance partitioning showed that 29 % of the explained variation could be attributed to tree chemistry alone, and it had a shared role in explaining a further 18 %. A range of environmental conditions, altitude, slope, soil depth, explained a similar proportion of the variance. Generalised linear modelling showed that some species, particularly bryophytes, had significant relationships with individual pine monoterpenes.
Key words: Pinus sylvestris, variance partitioning, vegetation pattern, monoterpenes