Plant Sciences Commons^™

Potential And Realized Nutrient Resorption In Serpentine And Non-Serpentine Chaparral Shrubs And Trees, Rebecca E. Drenovsky, Catherine E. Koehler, Kathryn Skelly, James H. Richards

Biology

Low-nutrient adapted species have numerous mechanisms that aid in nutrient conservation. Hypothetically, species adapted to nutrient-poor soils should have tighter internal nutrient recycling, as evidenced by greater resorption. However, literature results are mixed. We suggest methodological factors may limit our understanding of this process. We hypothesized that plants adapted to serpentine soils would be more proficient in resorbing N and P than plants adapted to non-serpentine soils, although there would be differences among functional groups within each soil type. For six growing seasons, we sampled senescent leaf tissue from the dominant and co-dominant shrubs and trees found in serpentine and …