A Trade-off Between Guerrilla and Phalanx Growth Forms in Leymus secalinus Under Different Nutrient Supplies

Ye, Xuehua; Yu, Fei‐Hai; Dong, Ming

doi:10.1093/aob/mcl086

Cited by 111 publications

(106 citation statements)

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“…L. chinensis is a type of rhizomatous clonal grass with a guerrilla strategy, which enables L. chinensis to spread quickly in horizontal space and lets L. chinensis more readily escape from stressful microsites to more favorable ones (Doust 1981(Doust , 1987Ye et al 2006;Li et al 2007). Therefore, the N acquisition strategy of L. chinensis was more flexible and more dependent upon the relative availability of different N forms in the soil.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Nitrogen acquisition strategies used by Leymus chinensis and Stipa grandis in temperate steppes

Tian

Ouyang

et al. 2016

Biol Fertil Soils

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Leymus chinensis and Stipa grandis are two important plant species of temperate steppes in Inner Mongolia of North China. They differ in their life forms, e.g., L. chinensis is a type of rhizomatous clonal grass, whereas S. grandis is a type of tussock grass. Here we hypothesize that both plant species possess distinct nitrogen (N) acquisition strategies for their growth and survival. To test this hypothesis, we conducted a four-factor experimental field study using a short-term (three hours) 15 N labeling technique in two plant communities mono-dominated by L. chinensis and S. grandis of the temperate steppes over two months (July and August) and at two soil depths. In both of communities, L. chinensis and S. grandis directly absorbed all three of the common forms of N, including substantial portions of N-derived from glycine (organic and inorganic forms) ranged from 2.7 to 17.8 %, although they absorbed more inorganic N. Nitrogen uptake rates showed significant effects of communities, months, soil depths, and N forms. The uptake rate was higher in August than in July and at 0-5 cm than at 5-15 cm soil depths. L. chinensis and S. grandis showed different preference on N form across months. L. chinensis shifted its uptake pattern from more nitrate (NO 3 − ) in July to more ammonium (NH 4 + ) in August, whereas S. grandis took up comparable NH 4 + and NO 3 − in both months. In general, L. chinensis showed a more flexible N acquisition strategy and S. grandis performed a more concentrated and relatively more stable N acquisition strategy. The distinct N acquisition strategies used by L. chinensis and S. grandis varied greatly across different months and soil depths. These findings are more helpful in further understanding the plasticity of nutrient utilization issues of different plant species in response to N-limited conditions of grassland ecosystems.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Nitrogen acquisition strategies used by Leymus chinensis and Stipa grandis in temperate steppes

Tian

Ouyang

et al. 2016

Biol Fertil Soils

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“…Reproduction is one of the key life history traits with effects on fitness (Ye et al, 2006;Liu and Chen, 2009). Many flowering plants produce both sexual and asexual offsprings, and they have different probabilities in their fitness characteristics (Bengtsson and Ceplitis, 2000).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Patterns of Reproductive and Seed Dispersal and Ecological Significance of the Clonal Spring Ephemeroid Plant Carex physodes in the Gurbantuggut Desert

Abudureheman

Chen

et al. 2018

Planta daninha

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-Carex physodes is an ephemeral species in the cold desert of Gurbantunggut in Northwest China. It has both asexual and sexual reproductive patterns. The primary aims of this study were to characterize the reproduction systems and identify the role of fruit dispersal in the sexual reproduction of C. physodes. Aboveground and underground biomass, root-shoot ratio, inflorescence biomass, fruit-set of C. physodes were measured and dispersal of perigynia and achenes in the natural habitat and indoor condition were studied. The underground biomass of C. physodes was approximately 10 times more than the aboveground biomass. The most parts of aboveground biomass is allocated to the inflorescence, which suggests that C. physodes allocates most biomass to the reproductive part. C. physodes produces perigynium with a pericarp containing one achene. The perigynia disperse at a much greater distance than achenes at both 1 and 4 m s -1 wind velocity, and the floating time of perigynia in water was much longer than that of achenes. Perigynia can hold more water and adher soil much more easily than achenes, which suggests that perigynia are suitable for wind dispersal, and they also adapt to spread at a long distance by occasionally rainfall. However, achenes may remain near the mother plants and only disperse at short distances. C. physodes is morphologically and physiologically adapted to the cold desert environment via a combination of characters associated with the rhizomatous and perigynium. This adaption may increase the opportunity of survival and expansion of population of C. physodes. Keywords

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“…In many non-clonal species, for example, shade produced by neighbours induces apical dominance and shoot elongation, which project resource-acquiring structures (leaves) upward into patches of higher light availability (the so-called shade-avoidance syndrome; Schmitt et al 2003). Likewise, many clonal species 'forage' for patchily distributed resources in an environment by proliferating and/or elongating shoots or roots according to resource availability, a response that may help individuals to exploit more favourable patches and avoid or vacate those of lesser quality (Lovett Doust 1981, de Kroon & Hutchings 1995, Ye et al 2006. Hence, growth form as a whole is considered an important life history trait in plants and is further expected to interact with a suite of others, such as growth, size at reproduction and fecundity (Sackville Hamilton et al 1987, Fischer et al 2004.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Responses to conspecific density in an arborescent bryozoan

Gooley

Marshall

Monro

2010

Mar. Ecol. Prog. Ser.

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Sessile colonial invertebrates that must tolerate environmental variation without the luxury of mobility may be expected to cope with such variation through phenotypic plasticity. While plastic responses to a range of biotic factors (e.g. predation) are increasingly documented, the details of responses to competition (mediated by the densities of conspecifics or heterospecifics vying for the same resources) remain unclear, despite a rich literature for terrestrial plants on which to draw. We examined phenotypic responses to conspecific density in a colonial invertebrate (the arborescent bryozoan, Bugula neritina) under field conditions. We found that colonies at higher densities were generally less fecund, lower in biomass and more elongate than those growing virtually alone. We also found such responses to vary only subtly with the life history stage of neighbours, with colonies exposed to higher densities of contemporary recruits achieving elongation via increased budding between bifurcation points and the elongation of individual zooids, while colonies exposed to established adults achieved elongation via increased budding only. These responses are broadly consistent with those of terrestrial plants competing for light and are probably due to the combined effects of resource limitation and altered flow in high density stands. Future studies are needed to disentangle these effects and the extent to which such responses to density in branching colonial invertebrates are a passive result of food limitation, or reflect active (and potentially adaptive) plasticity to other aspects of the local density environment.KEY WORDS: Branching · Colony form · Density · Foraging behaviour · Intraspecific competition plasticity · Bryozoa Resale or republication not permitted without written consent of the publisherMar Ecol Prog Ser 415: [83][84][85][86][87][88][89][90] 2010 the same fixed resource -is widely believed to determine the structure of many benthic communities (Jackson 1977, Vermeij & Sandin 2008.To date, research on phenotypic responses to density in such systems has emphasised changes in overall growth and reproductive output, especially in encrusting bryozoans and ascidians (e.g. Sebens 1982, Buss 1990, Stocker & Underwood 1991, Dias et al. 2008. As expected, individuals at lower densities with access to more space (and hence to more energy and nutrient sources like sunlight, suspended food particles or dissolved chemical compounds; Sebens 1982) often grow faster, larger and more fecund than crowded individuals. In other cases, however, this expectation is not met (Stocker & Underwood 1991, Abdo et al. 2008, possibly because adverse effects of competition on performance are ameliorated by responses in other (e.g. morphological) traits. For example, barnacles at high conspecific densities may express a tall 'hummocked' morphology that improves access to suspended food particles (Bertness et al. 1998). Similarly, encrusting bryozoans that are encroached upon may start to produce stolons that slow the ...

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A Trade-off Between Guerrilla and Phalanx Growth Forms in Leymus secalinus Under Different Nutrient Supplies

Abstract: The results suggest that a trade-off between the two growth forms in L. secalinus exists under different nutrient supplies. Such a trade-off together with plasticity in spacer morphology may enable L. secalinus to make better use of small-scale heterogeneity in resource supply.

Cited by 111 publications

References 32 publications

Nitrogen acquisition strategies used by Leymus chinensis and Stipa grandis in temperate steppes

Nitrogen acquisition strategies used by Leymus chinensis and Stipa grandis in temperate steppes

Patterns of Reproductive and Seed Dispersal and Ecological Significance of the Clonal Spring Ephemeroid Plant Carex physodes in the Gurbantuggut Desert

Responses to conspecific density in an arborescent bryozoan

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