The flooding tolerance of two critical habitat-forming wetland shrubs, Leptospermum lanigerum and Melaleuca squarrosa, at different life history stages

Abstract

Understanding the effect of water regime on the different life history stages of woody wetland plants is essential to managing their persistence. The common and widespread myrtaceous shrub species, Melaleuca squarrosa Donn. ex Sm. and Leptospermum lanigerum (Aiton) Sm., provide habitat for two critically endangered fauna within the Yellingbo Nature Conservation Reserve (south-eastern Australia), but are in decline putatively because of the altered flooding regimes. We, thus, tested the effects of flooding depth and duration on their seed germination and seedling establishment, and seedling growth and survival in two separate glasshouse experiments. We also compared the condition of mature pl..