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Abscisic Acid in Soil Facilitates Community Succession in Three Forests in China

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Abstract

Plants release secondary metabolites into the soil that change the chemical environment around them. Exogenous abscisic acid (ABA) is an important allelochemical whose role in successional trajectories has not been examined. We hypothesized that ABA can accumulate in the soil through successional processes and have an influence on forest dynamics. To this end, we investigated the distribution of ABA in forest communities from early to late successional stages and the response of dominant species to the gradient of ABA concentrations in three types of forests from northern to southern China. Concentrations of ABA in the soils of three forest types increased from early to late successional stages. Pioneer species’ litters had the lowest ABA content, and their seed germination and seedling early growth were the most sensitive to the inhibitory effect of ABA. Mid- and late-successional species had a much higher ABA content in fallen leaves than pioneer species, and their seed germination and seedling early growth were inhibited by higher concentrations of ABA than pioneers. Late-successional species showed little response to the highest ABA concentration, possibly due to their large seed size. The results suggest that ABA accumulates in the soil as community succession proceeds. Sensitivity to ABA in the early stages, associated with other characteristics, may result in pioneer species losing their advantage in competition with late-successional species in an increasingly high ABA concentration environment, and being replaced by ABA-tolerant, late-successional species.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Guanhua Dai, Quan Chao, and Dingsheng Mo for field assistance; Jinrong Wu, Guimin Hu, and Wentian Wang for laboratory analyses. Xiaoyi Wei and Yanjun Du provided very helpful comments on the manuscript. We also thank Anne Bjorkman at the University of British Columbia for assistance with English language and grammatical editing of the manuscript. This research was funded by National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC 30670385; U0633002) and basic science foundation of Research Institute of Tropical Forestry, Chinese Academy of Forestry (RITFYWZX200905; CAFYBB2008004).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. South China Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou, 510650, China

    Houben Zhao & Zhuoquan Chen

  2. Institute of Ecology and Evolution, State Key Lab of Biocontrol, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, 510275, China

    Shaolin Peng

  3. Research Institute of Tropical Forestry, Chinese Academy of Forestry, Guangzhou, 510520, China

    Houben Zhao, Zhongmin Wu, Guangyi Zhou, Xu Wang & Zhijun Qiu

  4. Guangzhou Environmental Protection Bureau, Guangzhou, 510032, China

    Zhuoquan Chen

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  1. Houben Zhao
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Correspondence to Shaolin Peng.

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Fig. S1

Map of the three experimental forests studied in this paper. (DOC 196 kb)

Table S1

Percentage of seed germination (%) of dominant species of all successional stages in three sample forests on culture with a gradient of ABA concentrations. Data in table are mean percent of germination ± tandard error. Different letters follow significantly different means (P<0.05). (DOC 43 kb)

Table S2

Seedling length (cm) of dominant species of all successional phases in three sample forests on culture with a gradient of ABA concentrations. Data in table are mean seedling length (shoot and root) ± standard error. Different letters follow significantly different means (P<0.05). (DOC 43 kb)

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Zhao, H., Peng, S., Chen, Z. et al. Abscisic Acid in Soil Facilitates Community Succession in Three Forests in China. J Chem Ecol 37, 785–793 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10886-011-9970-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10886-011-9970-z

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