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Effects of Simulated Browsing and Length of Growing Season on Leaf Characteristics and Flowering in a Deciduous Arctic Shrub, Salix polaris

Plants respond to herbivory either by maximizing resource acquisition and compensatory growth or by minimizing loss of resources, e.g., by investing in chemical or structural defence. We studied the response to simulated browsing by the deciduous dwarf shrub, Salix polaris, on high Arctic Spitsbergen. Salix polaris is browsed by Svalbard reindeer, and its response to browsing may influence subsequent utilization. We compared leaf characteristics and flowering of S. polaris from areas with relatively short, intermediate, and long growing season, and their responses 1 yr after simulated browsing in early, mid, and late summer. Leaf numbers, total and individual biomass of leaves, and the number of inflorescences were greatly reduced the year after treatment. There was no increase in phenolics but a tendency to an increase in N content in the leaves of S. polaris 1 yr after treatment. Salix polaris showed little variation in the response to simulated browsing with local variation in resource availability (length of growing season) or with time of browsing. The results suggest that S. polaris responds to summer browsing the previous year by allocating resources to compensatory growth rather than to defence. For reindeer, browsing of S. polaris leads to a sizeable decrease in food quantity and, possibly, to a limited increase in food quality.