Subterranean Seed Production and Population Responses to Fire in Amphicarpum Purshii (Gramineae)
Cheplick GP and Quinn JA. 1988. Subterranean Seed Production and Population Responses to Fire in Amphicarpum Purshii (Gramineae). Journal of Ecology. 76(1):263-273
Early in the summer growing season, annual peanutgrass (Amphicarpum purshii ) rapidly forms a seed bank by producing large, subterranean seeds. This study tests the hypothesis that, since this species grows mostly in the fir-prone Pine Barrens of New Jersey, this adaptive trait might enhance population survival after fire. At two sites in southern New Jersey, plots containing either Andropogon litter (site A) or perennial herbs (site B) were burned on 28 October 1983, and subsequent performance of Amphicarpum plants monitored during the 1984 growing season. At both sites, only seedlings from subterranean seeds were found. In an Amphicarpum population at Atsion, New Jersey, where a pitch pine forest had burned in the previous season, plants in the burned area were over 1 m tall and produced 50 times as many aerial spikelets as those in an adjacent unburned forest. The subterranean seed placement of Amphicarpum occurs at an average depth of 3 multiplied by 5 cm, protected from the potentially detrimental effects of high fire temperature at and above the soil surface.
- Type
- Journal Article
- Authors
- Cheplick, Gregory; Quinn, James
- Units
- PINE
- Keywords
- blue maiden-cane (Amphicarpum purshii), Environmental Impact, Fire Ecology, Plant Studies, Population Dynamics, Reproduction, Research Report, Wildfire