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Demography and recruitment of scots pine on raised bogs in eastern Sweden and relationships to microhabitat differentiation

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Abstract

Scots pines (Pinus sylvestris) growing on open bogs occur preferentially on hummocks and on the margin of the bogs. To assess which life history stages lead to this uneven distribution, we studied how variation in the ground-water level influences recruitment and mortality.

In a sowing experiment, the germination was high, 76% on hummocks and 66% in hollows, but it was not significantly different between the microhabitats. Seedling and juvenile pine survival was significantly lower in hollows than on hummocks. The demography of pines in three permanent plots, which represent open bogs, marginal pine forests, and their transition zone, was followed over more than 10 years. Recruitment from seeds was high in 1993 and 1994 compared to earlier surveys and was succeeded by high mortality among the recruits. Events in certain years have profound, long-term effects on the population. High mortality (ca. 60%) of the established pines in the marginal pine forest occurred in 1981. Pines growing close to the ground-water table had a lower survival probability than pines growing at a higher elevation. Differences in seedling survival seem more important than germination success in determining the uneven distribution of pines on the bog.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Ecological Botany, Uppsala University, Villavägen 14, S-752 36, Uppsala, Sweden

    Urban Gunnarsson & Håkan Rydin

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  1. Urban Gunnarsson
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  2. Håkan Rydin
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Gunnarsson, U., Rydin, H. Demography and recruitment of scots pine on raised bogs in eastern Sweden and relationships to microhabitat differentiation. Wetlands 18, 133–141 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03161450

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03161450

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