Purple Pitcher Plant (Sarracenia Rosea) Dieback and Partial Community Disassembly Following Experimental Storm Surge in a Coastal Pitcher Plant Bog

RESEARCH ARTICLE Purple Pitcher Plant (Sarracenia rosea) Dieback and Partial Community Disassembly following Experimental Storm Surge in a Coastal Pitcher Plant Bog Matthew J. Abbott*, Loretta L. Battaglia Department of Plant Biology and Center for Ecology, Southern Illinois University, Mail Code 6509, Carbondale, IL, 62901, United States of America * [email protected] Abstract Sea-level rise and frequent intense hurricanes associated with climate change will result in recurrent flooding of inland systems such as Gulf Coastal pitcher plant bogs by storm surges. These surges can transport salt water and sediment to freshwater bogs, greatly af- fecting their biological integrity. Purple pitcher plants (Sarracenia rosea) are Gulf Coast OPEN ACCESS pitcher plant bog inhabitants that could be at a disadvantage under this scenario because their pitcher morphology may leave them prone to collection of saline water and sediment Citation: Abbott MJ, Battaglia LL (2015) Purple Pitcher Plant (Sarracenia rosea) Dieback and Partial after a surge. We investigated the effects of storm surge water salinity and sediment type on Community Disassembly following Experimental S. rosea vitality, plant community structure, and bog soil-water conductivity. Plots (contain- Storm Surge in a Coastal Pitcher Plant Bog. PLoS ing 1 ramet of S. rosea) were experimentally flooded with fresh or saline water crossed ONE 10(4): e0125475. doi:10.1371/journal. with one of three sediment types (local, foreign, or no sediment). There were no treatment pone.0125475 effects on soil-water conductivity; nevertheless, direct exposure to saline water resulted in Academic Editor: Christopher Carcaillet, Ecole significantly lower S. rosea cover until the following season when a prescribed fire and re- Pratique des Hautes Etudes, FRANCE gional drought contributed to the decline of all the S. rosea to near zero percent cover. Received: February 27, 2014 There were also significant differences in plant community structure between treatments Accepted: March 24, 2015 over time, reflecting how numerous species increased in abundance and a few species de- Published: April 13, 2015 creased in abundance. However, in contrast to S. rosea, most of the other species in the Copyright: © 2015 Abbott, Battaglia. This is an open community appeared resilient to the effects of storm surge. Thus, although the community access article distributed under the terms of the may be somewhat affected by storm surge, those few species that are particularly sensitive Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits to the storm surge disturbance will likely drop out of the community and be replaced by unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any more resilient species. Depending on the longevity of these biological legacies, Gulf Coastal medium, provided the original author and source are credited. pitcher plant bogs may be incapable of fully recovering if they become exposed to storm surge more frequently due to climate change. Funding: This project was funded by a grant from the United States Department of Defense’s SERDP program (http://www.serdp.org/). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. PLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0125475 April 13, 2015 1/12 Effects of Storm Surge on Pitcher Plant Bogs Introduction Gulf Coast pitcher plant (GCPP) bogs are highly diverse, nutrient poor systems (nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium are the limiting nutrients) that are native to the southeastern re- gion of the United States. It is not uncommon to find more than 40 species of plants in a 1 m2 plot in GCPP bogs [1], and thus they are considered to be some of the most diverse plant communities in North America [2]. Gulf Coast pitcher plant bogs, which once covered approxi- mately 2,935 km2 in the southeastern portion of the United States prior to European settlement, have declined to just a mere 3% of their original extent due to anthropogenic disturbances such as logging, habitat fragmentation, and fire suppression [3]. Since a large majority of GCPP bogs occur close to the Gulf coastline (historically, the largest expanses were found within present day coastal counties [3]), climate change may exacerbate this already steady decline. Rising sea levels [4–7] and a higher frequency of intense hurricanes predicted with climate change [8–11] will likely have dramatic effects on coastal plant communities along the coastline of the Gulf of Mexico [12]. Many of the species residing in coastal wetlands must adapt to or migrate away from increasing salt water exposure associated with higher sea levels and farther reaching hurricane-induced storm surges [4, 13]. Historically, only during rare, ex- ceptionally strong hurricane events did storm surges ever reach far enough inland to affect GCPP bogs; however, higher sea levels combined with potentially more intense hurricanes [8–11] are likely to produce storm surges that will reach inland communities such as GCPP bogs more regularly [4]. Storm surges can have dramatic effects on plant communities because they transport salt water, sediment, and other forms of debris inland. The elevated salinity levels can lead to short term mortality of salt-intolerant species [14] and deposits of debris can initiate shifts in community structure as well [15]. In a comparison of plant community responses to experimental storm surge treatments across an estuarine gradient, Tate and Battaglia [15] found that the de- gree of community response to the treatments was positively related to its distance from the coast [15–16]. Thus, since GCPP bog communities are on the inland end of this transitional gradient (where salinity levels are low and storm-driven sediment redistribution is uncommon) [3], the impact of storm surge on these communities is likely to be dramatic. Salt water flooding, sedimentation, or a combination of the two are therefore expected to drive shifts in community structure as intolerant GCPP bog species are lost and species resilient to these disturbances increase in abundance [4, 14]. Of the GCPP bog species that would likely have the most difficulty recovering from storm surge disturbance, the purple pitcher plant, Sarracenia rosea, may be the most sensitive. The short, stout, open-lid morphology of S. rosea leaves (an adaptation for the collection of precipi- tation [17]) may make it quite prone to accumulation of salt water and sediment within its pitcher-shaped leaves (hereafter referred to as ‘pitchers’) after a surge floods an area and re- cedes. Once considered to be part of the wide ranging Sarracenia purpurea population, the southern variety (i.e. Sarracenia purpurea var. burkii D.E. Schnell, which is listed as threatened in Florida) was identified as its own species, Sarracenia rosea, in 1999 [18]. The native range of S. rosea is mainly limited to the coastal counties of Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, and the Flor- ida panhandle [18]. With such a limited range, this species is particularly vulnerable to extinc- tion via over-collection, land use change, and now, perhaps, farther reaching storm surges. Since S. rosea are not normally exposed to high salinity, residual salt water within the pitchers may cause immediate damage to the plants and could perhaps kill the inquiline communities on which the S. rosea depend for digestion of prey material. In addition, if the salt water does not immediately kill the S. rosea, sediments deposited in the pitchers might inhibit nutrient ab- sorption from captured prey, preventing the plants from maintaining normal growth. PLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0125475 April 13, 2015 2/12 Effects of Storm Surge on Pitcher Plant Bogs Therefore, if a storm surge floods a GCPP bog S. rosea may be the first to drop out from the community. Though it has been well documented that hurricane disturbances can lead to extensive mortality and assemblage shifts in coastal plant communities [4, 14–15], the effects of storm surges on plant communities within GCPP bogs have not yet been addressed. In this study, we experimentally applied storm surge treatments to GCPP bog communities and examined the effects of the treatments on S. rosea cover, overall plant community composition, and soil-water conductivity. We hypothesized that saline water intrusion and sedimentation from storm surge would (1) result in significant decreases in S. rosea cover; (2) cause shifts in plant community composition; and (3) result in elevated soil-water conductivity within GCPP bog soils. Materials and Methods Ethics Statement The study was conducted on federal property on Eglin Air Force Base (AFB). All permits nec- essary for conducting field work were obtained from the Eglin AFB 96th Test Wing Range Configuration Control Committee. No protected species was destructively sampled from the property in this study. Study Site and Experimental Design The GCPP bog used in this study was located in coastal wet pine savanna on Eglin AFB property (30° 29’ 0” N, 86° 31’ 31” W) in northwestern Florida (USA). We were constrained to this site because it was the only location at Eglin AFB that both supported a sufficiently high population of Sarracenia rosea and was within 300 meters of East River, the limit for effective pump- ing of water treatments to plots (see treatment description below). As is characteristic of typical fire-maintained, wet pine savannas, the overstory vegetation is composed mostly of longleaf (Pinus palustris) and slash (Pinus elliottii) pines, while the understory is characterized by a diverse assemblage of forbs, sedges and grasses [19]. The soils are nutrient-poor, sandy and acid- ic. Based on data from a nearby weather station at Pensacola Regional Airport [20], this area has an average annual temperature of 19.9° C and average annual rainfall total of 163 cm. How- ever, the study site received only 103.2 cm of rainfall from September 2010 to August 2011 due to a regional drought.

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