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Spatial patterns of bamboo expansion across scales: how does Moso bamboo interact with competing trees?

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Abstract

Contexts

The expansion of fast-growing Moso bamboo (Phyllostachys edulis) into forests is likely further favored by climate change, creating more transitional regions within forests. Such forest-bamboo transitional zones provide windows to look at ecological processes driving bamboo’s interaction with competing species across space.

Objectives

We tested the hypothesis that spatial patterns at different scales of the ecotone can inform bamboo’s invasive spread and its competitive engulfing strategy, with the allocation of biomass and resources within a bamboo colony being a key life-history strategy to facilitate its spatial spread.

Methods

We used remote sensing imagery and field survey data to analyze the dynamics of bamboo-tree transitional boundaries in Tianmu Mountain Nature Reserve (TMNR) in southeastern China. We evaluated bamboo’s spatial spread and its allocation of resources along the transitional gradient.

Results

Both remote sensing and field data showed bamboo recovery and advancement into tree territories after the extensive logging of bamboo but with a slower spread compared to historical records. The spatial distributions of bamboo and tree stems were not random at their transitional interfaces and were affected by competition. Successful bamboo expansion into trees required close coordination between stems and rhizomes within a colony, as they served different functions in clonal integration.

Conclusions

Our study initiates a scale-dependent analysis of shifts in bamboo-tree boundaries, which provides insights on how to accurately predict future bamboo distributions under climate change accounting for interspecific competition and bamboo’s clonal integration of resources.

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Data availability

Remote sensing imagery used in the current study is available in NASA’s repository via https://earthexplorer.usgs.gov/. Classified strata and transect census data in this work are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Stephen W. Pacala for supporting our field study design and data analysis. We are grateful for comments from An** Chen, Hannes de Deurwaerder, and Matteo Detto on this manuscript. Our gratitude extends to **aoting Xu (Sichuan University), XTBG, and the TMNR Bureau along with local communities for their generous help during data collection and processing.

Funding

Funding for this work was provided by The Carbon Mitigation Initiative at the High Meadows Environmental Institute, Princeton University, and the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Princeton University, NJ, USA.

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  1. Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, 08544, USA

    Aiyu Zheng

  2. State Key Laboratory of Subtropical Silviculture, Zhejiang A&F University, Hangzhou, 311300, China

    Jianhua Lv

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  1. Aiyu Zheng
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Both authors contributed to the study design and field data collection. AZ conducted data analysis and prepared the first draft of the manuscript. Both authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Aiyu Zheng.

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Zheng, A., Lv, J. Spatial patterns of bamboo expansion across scales: how does Moso bamboo interact with competing trees?. Landsc Ecol 38, 3925–3943 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-023-01669-z

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