HerbAdapt – Adaptation of understorey herbs to forest management

草本植物适应--林下草本植物对森林管理的适应植物对土地利用的适应通常在管理的草地生态系统中进行研究，而关于森林林下草本植物对森林管理的适应性的研究却很少。这是令人惊讶的，因为森林管理对森林林下环境，特别是对光照和土壤水分条件，这可能会对森林林下草本植物施加强有力的限制有很大的影响。我预测，这种环境变化作为不同的选择压力，导致表型性状分化和森林林下草本植物的森林管理的地方适应。在我的项目HerbAdapt中，我将进行两个常见的花园实验-其中一个包括光照和干旱处理-以及一个相互移植实验，以测试多个常见森林下层草本植物（四种杂类草，两种草）在不同的殖民率。除了性能和功能性状，我将调查开花物候，因为它与森林管理的观测现场数据的相关性。我将相关的表型性状的手段和性状反应的实验处理，从共同的花园实验，森林结构和小气候变量。在交互移植实验中，我将明确地测试适应森林管理，采用探索规模移植设计沿着管理强度梯度。总之，我的项目将有助于了解森林经营对林下草本植物表型性状变异的影响。作为生物多样性的一个重要层次，森林林下草本植物的表型性状变异构成了适应未来森林管理和全球气候变化的基础。

HerbAdapt – Adaptation of understorey herbs to forest managementPlant adaptation to land use has commonly been studied within the context of managed grassland ecosystems, whereas studies on the adaptation of forest understorey herbs to forest management are lacking. This is surprising because forest management has a strong impact on the forest understorey environment, especially on light and soil moisture conditions, which are likely to exert strong constraints on forest understorey herbs. I predict that this environmental variation acts as divergent selection pressure causing phenotypic trait differentiation and local adaptation of forest understorey herbs to forest management. In my project HerbAdapt I will perform two common garden experiments – one of them including a light and drought treatment – as well as a reciprocal transplant experiment to test this prediction for multiple common forest understorey herbs (four forbs, two grasses) varying in colonization rate. Besides performance and functional traits, I will investigate flowering phenology, because of its correlation with forest management for observational field data. I will correlate phenotypic trait means and trait responses to experimental treatments, obtained from the common garden experiments, with forest structure and microclimatic variables. With the reciprocal transplant experiment I will explicitly test for adaptation to forest management by adopting an Exploratory-scale transplant design along a management intensity gradient. Concluding, my project will contribute to understanding the impact of forest management on phenotypic trait variation in forest understorey herbs. Being an important level of biodiversity, phenotypic trait variation in forest understorey herbs forms the basis for adaptation to future changes in forest management and global climate.