, Volume 69, Issue 1, pp 72-82
Wild-harvested
medicinal plants collected from different light environments may show
differential recovery from harvest. Also, plants growing in open and
shaded habitats may allocate resources differently to defense. Since
defensive compounds are biologically active, this difference may lead to
variation in medicinal properties. We designed an experiment to test
the hypothesis that light environment will affect both the ability of
populations to recover from harvest and the medicinal properties of Ligusticum porteri (Apiaceae). L. porteri
is a wild-harvested plant found in both high-elevation meadows and
forest understories. Surveys in 2010 documented differences in
population structure between light environments, with fewer flowering
stalks in the understory. In 2012, we harvested plants in plots within
five sites across varying light (PAR) levels at three different
intensities: 0%, 50%, and 100% of ramets collected. We monitored
regrowth in these plots over two years. We also tested the medicinal
properties of methanol root extracts of L. porteri from the harvested plots using disc-diffusion assays. We found that L. porteri
was able to regrow leaves following even intensive harvest (100%),
although these were smaller than in control (0%) plots. Harvest
significantly reduced the number of flowering stalks, changing
population structure. While light did not impact the ability to regrow
following harvest, it did influence antibacterial activity. The ability
to inhibit Bacillus cereus
decreased in extracts from plants harvested from high light
environments, which follows plant defense theory. Altogether, harvest
sustainability in L. porteri is equivocal among the light environments examined in this study, although some medicinal properties vary. L. porteri populations can recover from harvest through vegetative regrowth.
