Adaptations to winter-wet ironstone soils: a comparison between rare ironstone Hakea (Proteaceae) species and their common congeners
Pieter Poot A B C , Roy Bakker A and Hans Lambers AA School of Plant Biology, Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences, The University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, WA 6009, Australia.
B Science Division, Department of Environment and Conservation, Locked Bag 104, Bentley Delivery Centre, WA 6983, Australia.
C Corresponding author. Email: pieterp@plants.uwa.edu.au
Australian Journal of Botany 56(7) 574-582 https://doi.org/10.1071/BT08155
Submitted: 18 August 2008 Accepted: 28 October 2008 Published: 26 November 2008
Abstract
In south-western Australia, a rare plant community is found on shallow, winter-wet ironstone soils, which occur on coastal plains as isolated islands in a matrix of surrounding deeper sandy soils. To test for local adaptation of species endemic to these communities and potential inhibitory effects of ironstone soils on other species, we compared two rare ironstone Hakea species with four of their common congeners. The common congeners were chosen from nearby winter-wet habitats on deeper sandy soils and from non-wetland woodland habitats (i.e. two species in each habitat group). Seedlings of all species were grown on ironstone soil and subjected to waterlogging in a glasshouse experiment. Significant habitat-related differences emerged only when seedlings were waterlogged. When compared with their controls, shoot and root growth rates of ironstone endemics were less affected by waterlogging than those of their common congeners. This was partly associated with their large accumulation of leaf starch, and their substantial adventitious-root formation. Leaves of ironstone endemics also exhibited consistently higher concentrations of Cu and Zn. In contrast to the effect of waterlogging in the glasshouse experiment, natural waterlogging of seedlings transplanted into ironstone communities led to high mortality, but only in the non-wetland Hakea species. Mortality was strongly associated with the intensity of flooding events, with very small differences in inundation level (10–15 mm) strongly influencing seedling survival. Our results suggest that the chemistry of the waterlogged ironstone soil, and species adaptations to it, are important for understanding distribution patterns of these Hakea species.
Acknowledgements
We thank Tim Colmer for his constructive criticisms on an earlier version of this manuscript. This research was supported by an Australian Research Council SPIRT grant to Pieter Poot, with additional financial support from Kings Park and Botanic Garden.
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Appendix 1. Soil chemical analyses
To obtain an estimate of the variation in soil characteristics among the three habitat types our species originated from, we randomly sampled topsoil (top 100 mm) from two sites for each habitat type (n = 4 per site). The sites coincided with the populations the seeds were collected from. Soil analyses were performed by CSBP Futurefarm analytical laboratories (Bibra Lake, Western Australia, Australia). Soil samples were air-dried and passed through a 2-mm sieve. For total P, soils were digested by a Kjeldahl procedure (sulfuric acid–potassium sulfate–copper sulfate). Bicarbonate-extractable P was determined after extraction with 0.5 M sodium bicarbonate at pH 8.5 (Colwell 1963). P in the extracts/digests was determined colorimetrically by the phosphomolybdenum blue method (Murphy and Riley 1962). Trace elements (Cu, Zn, Mn and Fe) were extracted with EDTA solution at a ratio of 1 : 5 for 1 h, and their concentrations were determined by inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectrometry. Reactive Fe and Al were extracted by acid oxalate (Parfitt and Childs 1988). Fe was then determined by atomic absorption spectrometry and Al by inductively coupled plasma mass spectroscopy. Exchangeable cations (Ca, Mg, Na, K) were extracted with 0.1 M BaCl2/0.1 M NH4Cl, and determined by ICP–MS. For determining soil pH (water) and electrical conductivity (EC), soils were stirred in deionised water for 1 h at 25°C with a soil : solution ratio of 1 : 5. After measurements of pH (water) and EC, pH (CaCl2) was measured by adding CaCl2 to a concentration of 0.01 M.
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