Drivers of seedling emergence and early growth of 12 European oak species: Results from a cross-continental experiment

作者：Alexandro B. Leverkus, María Medina, Alba Lázaro-González, Laura Levy, Olivia Lorente-Casalini, M. Pilar Martín, Enrique Andivia, Alessandro Bizzarri, Henrik Böhlenius, Vito Emanuele Cambria, Claudia Cocozza, Branislav Cvjetković, Giovanbattista de Dato, Lenka Ehrenbergerová, Peter Ferus, Lorena Gómez‐Aparicio, Arndt Hampe, Kjersti Hanssen, Marcin Jakubowski, Ivona Kerkez Janković, Marcin Klisz, Wojciech Kowalkowski, Klaus Kremer, Jelena Lazarević, Dagnija Lazdiņa, Emanuele Lingua, Magnus Löf, Manuel Esteban Lucas‐Borja, Adrian Łukowski, Paula Maia, Paola Mairota, Alberto Maltoni, Barbara Mariotti, Raffaella Marzano, Lucia Mondanelli, Antonio Montagnoli, María Cristina Monteverdi, Francisco B. Navarro, Juan A. Oliet, Maria do Sameiro Patrício, Zoran Poduška, Vladan Popović, Radosław Puchałka, Piotr Robakowski, Piotr Sewerniak, Carmen Ureña-Lara, Pedro Villar‐Salvador, Johanna Witzell, Nicolò Anselmetto, Jürgen Bauhus, Raquel Benavides, Paola Bolzon, María Dolores Carbonero Muñoz, Jorge Castro, Donato Chiatante, Sofia Corticeiro, Michele De Sanctis, Jovana Devetaković, Kārlis Dūmiņš, Fløistad Inger Sundheim, Melanie Morales, Sanja Jovanović, Branko Kanjevac, J.C.J.M. de Kroon, Dario La Montagna, Roman Malik, Antonín Martiník, Luis Matías, Ryan McClory, Fabio Meloni, Manuel Ceballos, Ricardo A. Moreno Llorca, Marina Nonić, Luís Nunes, Pedro Antonio Plaza‐Álvarez, Roberta Proietti, Stefano Puccinelli, José María Rey Beñayas, Marek Szczerba, Arkadiusz Tomczak, Ana Topalović, Viktorija Vendiņa · 发表于：Forest Ecology and Management · 年份：2025 · DOI：10.1016/j.foreco.2025.123223 · 被引用次数：2 · 研究领域：Seedling growth and survival studies、Ecology and Vegetation Dynamics Studies、Aerospace, Electronics, Mathematical Modeling

Seedling emergence constitutes a critical recruitment step, and early growth relates to plant competitive ability. Understanding their drivers has implications for forestry and forest ecosystem conservation, restoration, and adaptation to climate change. We seeded 6984 acorns in an experiment with 97 cases at 45 sites in 15 European countries, encompassing 12 oak species. We tested whether the quality of the acorn batch, site-level weather and soil characteristics, year of seeding, and species’ mean specific leaf area (SLA) affected the emergence and early growth of seedlings after the first summer. Germination potential and acorn dry weight, measured under controlled conditions, were positively associated with emergence and early growth. Seedling emergence was negatively associated with the mean monthly temperature and cumulative winter precipitation, and it was higher in the seedling cohort that was spared from the 2021 drought. Additionally, seedling emergence was positively related to soil nutrient concentration and negatively to increasing soil pH, but not to water-holding capacity, and growth was unrelated to soils. Species-level SLA was not related to either response. The four main study species – Quercus cerris , Q. ilex , Q. petraea, and Q. robur – responded similarly to weather but not to soil conditions. We conclude that, at a continental scale, and assuming that species establish within their current distributions, (a) oak seedling emergence and early growth are a...