Understory plant diversity and phenolic allelochemicals across a range of Eucalyptus grandis plantation ages

Allelopathy is an important mechanism in Eucalyptus plantations that causes detrimental impacts on understory diversity.Phenolic compounds are the main allelochemicals suppressing understory plants.However,the dynamic changes in phenolic allelochemicals and their relationship with understory diversity with increasing age of Eucalyptus plantations remain largely unclear.In this study,the understory plant diversity was assessed and phenolic compounds identified from leaf litter,roots,and rhizosphere soil samples in a Eucalyptus grandis plantation at two-year intervals for ten years using ultra-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry(UPLC-MS/MS).The abundance and diversity of under story plant species were lowest in 4-year-old plantations and increased significantly with age.Seven phenolic acids and 10 flavonoids were identified from leaf litter,roots,and rhizosphere soils.Most of the potential phenolic allelochemicals,such as salicylic acid,gallic acid,4-hydroxybenzoic acid,and epicatechin,were more abundant in younger plantations,especially at4 years old.The concentrations of phenolic compounds in the rhizosphere zone were significantly lower than in litter and root samples and did not change significantly with an increase in age.Notably,phenolic compounds contributed more to the variation in the understory plants than soil factors.Hydroxyphenyllactic acid,ellagic acid,quercetin,salicylic acid,and 4-hydroxybenzoic acid were the main phenolic compounds explaining the variation in plant diversity with plantation age.These findings indicate that young E.grandis plantations,especially at four years of age,merit a greater focus because of their lower understory plant diversity and higher allelopathic potential.

Old coppice versus high forest:the impact of beech forest management on plant species diversity in central Apennines(italy)

Aims Silvicultural management plays a major role in shaping understory diversity through its action on stand structure.in many parts of Europe,recent socioeconomic changes have led to the progressive abandonment of coppicing in favor of high forest(HF)management.in order to examine how this change impacts understory species,we compared old coppice-with-standards and HF stands in terms of structural features and understory richness and composition,also taking into account the diagnostic species pool of the habitat.Since the management systems for coppices and HFs differ in cutting regime,we expect that they would cause different changes in floristic composition and richness.Methods The study area was the Montagne della Duchessa massif,in central italy.Structural differences and floristic richness were compared,and the diagnostic species diversity was analyzed using rarefaction curves and Rényi diversity profiles.Differences in understory com-position were analyzed through indicator species analysis.Important Findings Our results showed that,though the old coppices have a slightly higher number of understory species in general,the HF stands have greater mean species richness in both understory and diagnostic species,the latter being more evenly distributed inside the com-munity.These finding were related to the cut regime,which favor a constant canopy cover over time and thus the maintenance of more stable microclimatic conditions,promoting the higher abundance and evenness of shade-tolerant and vernal species.Conversely,the dense canopy of the old coppice appears to affect the understory richness by reducing the presence of light-demanding species,but still without a complete recolonization of the shade-tolerant spe-cies.Overall,our findings provide the first insights supporting that,in a Mediterranean montane context,old coppice conversion to HF could over time improve the species diversity in these habitats and help maintain good conservation status of the typical mature beech forests.