Life Sciences Commons^™

Cold Tolerance Of Photosynthesis As A Determinant Of Tree Species Regeneration Patterns In An Evergreen Temperate Forest, Christopher P. Bickford, Sarah J. Richardson, Karen I. Bonner

Christopher P Bickford

Niche partitioning of light among seedling species is a key mechanism supporting coexistence in forests. Species sort along light gradients through direct responses to light and through indirect responses mediated by other environmental factors. Canopy gaps in temperate evergreen rainforests experience sub-zero temperatures and thus gap-dependent species are vulnerable to cold photoinhibition from exposure to high light at low temperatures. We used a shadehouse experiment to test two hypotheses: (1) that gap-dependent species are resistant to cold photoinhibition; and (2) that gap-dependence observed in the field may be driven by the interaction between high light and low temperatures. Specifically, we …