Landscape and Urban Planning - What doesn't kill you makes you stronger: Resprouting vigour after coppicing increases with pre-coppiced plant size and storage reserves in woody plants.

Trait-based approach to select woody species for naturalistic low maintenance plantings managed by coppicing.

1. Naturalistic or meadow-like plantings are increasingly being used in cities as low-maintenance plantings that provide multiple ecosystem services and high amenity. Generally, these plantings are mixtures of herbaceous species from temperate habitats which are maintained by annual mowing. In hotter and drier climates, meadow-like plantings could take inspiration from natural shrubland communities. An example of this is the Woody Meadow Project which uses dense plantings of Australian shrubs and small trees and is maintained by coppicing every two to four years. The ideal Woody Meadow species should resprout vigorously after coppicing, as denser canopies suppress weeds and promote flowering for enhanced visual appeal. While resprouting from disturbances such as fire has been related to resource allocation and starch reserves and habitat water availability, it is unknown whether these factors also influence resprouting after coppicing which removes the majority of above-ground plant biomass.
2. Therefore, we investigated whether the ability of plants to resprout and resprouting vigour (shoot dry biomass) after coppicing were related with pre-coppiced traits and habitat water availability. We evaluated 77 Australian woody species in a common garden experiment. Habitat water availability was based on species occurrences in the Atlas of Living Australia and mean annual precipitation, heat moisture index, and precipitation seasonality were sourced from WorldClim.
3. Overall, 88% of species resprouted, with 54 species achieving at least 60% resprouting success. Resprouting success was not related with pre-coppiced traits. However, resprouting vigour was greater in species with greater basal area, height, total biomass, and starch pool before coppicing. Habitat water availability was unrelated to coppicing response.
4. Synthesis. Most species could resprout after coppicing and growth after coppicing was related to pre-coppiced plant size. This indicates that most woody species will be suitable for Woody Meadows and that greater species diversity will likely make losses of individual species negligible. Selecting larger sized plant species will also ensure faster growth after coppicing and assist in maintaining visual appeal of Woody Meadows. Further research is required to understand whether resprouters can fully recover biomass post-coppicing, the impact of multiple coppicing, and how competition shapes plantings over time.