Does a trade-off between growth plasticity and resource conservatism mediate post-fire shrubland responses to rainfall seasonality?

Abstract

Growth plasticity may allow fire-prone species to maximize their recovery rates during temporary, sporadic periods of rainfall availability in the post-fire environment. However, moisture-driven growth plasticity could be maladaptive in nutrient-limited environments that require tighter control of growth and resource use. We investigated whether a trade-off between plasticity and conservatism mediates growth responses to altered rainfall seasonality in neighbouring shrubland communities that occupy different soils. We monitored post-fire vegetation regrowth in two structurally similar, Mediterranean-type shrublands for 3 years. We investigated the effects of experimentally altered rainfall seasonality on post-fire species' growth rates. We found that moisture-driven growth plasticity was higher among species occupying the fertile soils of the renosterveld site relative to those occupying the nutrient-poor soils of the fynbos site. This resulted in higher overall responsiveness of post-fire recovery patterns in renosterveld to experimental shifts in rainfall seasonality. In post-fire shrubland communities, the trade-off between moisture-dependent growth plasticity and resource conservatism could be mediated by soil nutrient availability. Therefore, edaphic differences between structurally similar shrublands could lead to differences in their sensitivity to post-fire rainfall seasonality.

Keywords: Mediterranean; climate change; fire; phenotypic plasticity; rainfall; resource conservatism; shrubland; soil nutrients.