Feihai
Yu, |
Clonal integration enhances survival and performance of Potentilla anserina, suffering from partial sand burial on Ordos plateau, China |
Laboratory of Quantitative Vegetation Ecology, Institute of Botany, The Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100093, China. |
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Abstract. On Ordos plateau, a semi-arid, desertified area in China, sand burial is a common stress factor for plants. The extent to which sand burial occurs is heterogeneous and unpredictable in space and in time. Therefore, clonal fragments (i.e. interconnected ramets of a clonal plant) often experiences partial sand burial, with some ramets buried in sand while the rest may remain unburied. It was hypothesized that clonal fragments are able to benefit from clonal integration, in case they experience partial sand burial. A pot experiment was conducted with P. anserina, a stoloniferous herb often found in Ordos plateau. We used clonal fragments consisting of four interconnected ramets. In the experiment, the two proximal (older) ramets were unburied while the two connected, distal (younger) ramets were either unburied (control) or buried with a 2cm, 4cm or 6cm deep layer of sand (burial treatments). The stolon connection between the proximal and the distal ramets was either severed or left intact. Stolon severing dramatically decreased the survival of buried ramets. Stolon severing and sand burial had significant effects on plant performance in terms of biomass production, number of leaves and leaf area. A cost-benefit analysis based on performance measures shows that the proximal ramets supported their connected distal ramets and did not incur any cost from this resource export. These results suggest that clonal integration, which is one of the functionally most important consequences of clonal growth, contributes significantly to our test species' capacity for withstanding partial sand burial on Ordos plateau, a semi-arid and desertified area of China. |
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Keywords |
Clonal
integration, Cost-benefit analysis, Partial sand burial, Potentilla
anserina, Stolon severing |
Evolutionary Ecology (2001) 15: 4-6 (in press). |