干旱区生态环境知识资源中心

To investigate survivorship and regeneration in desert perennial plants, individual shrubs were mapped, measured and tagged on a nearly level 360 m(2) plot of diverse Mojave Desert vegetation in 1981, they were re-mapped and measured 15 years later, in 1996. A large majority of the shrubs persisted between censuses. Modest birth (establishment) and death rates indicate that plants are replaced approximately every century, while the median longevity of several species is much longer. A 15-yr intercensus interval, appropriate for most species (i.e. birth and death rates were measurable), is too short for several larger shrubs (including Larrea divaricata, Ephedra nevadensis, Yucca schidigera and the larger Opuntia spp.) in which virtually no births or deaths occurred and in which longevity must be extremely high.

While individuals of most species grew over the 15-yr interval, others did not, and some individuals shrank in size. In a number of species, individual growth rates were significantly reduced according to the number of neighbouring plants rooted 0.5 - 2.0 m distant. Even Larrea tridentata, one of the largest species, showed significant effects of growth rate reduction where crowded by allospecific plants, despite the generally much smaller sizes of these neighbours.