Abstract
Plants in meadows in which disturbance has recently ceased are able to store larger TNC pools than plants in mown meadows. These large TNC pools, however, are depleted during winter and/or spring so that summer pools and concentrations do not differ between plants from differently managed plots.
It is clear, moreover, that although TNC concentrations at first reflect the carbohydrate mobilization needed for resprouting in response to plant damage and then the refilling of reserves thereby expended, the pools are affected by the growth of storage organs,which can occur seasonally in accordance with the plant's phenology. Although TNC concentrations and TNC pools reflect different aspects of plant carbohydrate storage, TNC concentration, as the more easily measurable trait, might sufficiently describe short-term effects of disturbance.