Plasticity in the Morphology of Growing Bamboo: A Bayesian Analysis of Exogenous Treatment Effects on Plant Height, Internode Length, and Internode Numbers

Abstract

Sucrose (Suc) and gibberellin (GA) can promote the elongation of certain internodes in bamboo. However, there is a lack of field studies to support these findings and no evidence concerning how Suc and GA promote the plant height of bamboo by regulating the internode elongation and number. We investigated the plant height, the length of each internode, and the total number of internodes of Moso bamboo (Phyllostachys edulis) under exogenous Suc, GA, and control group (CTRL) treatments in the field and analyzed how Suc and GA affected the height of Moso bamboo by promoting the internode length and number. The lengths of the 10th–50th internodes were significantly increased under the exogenous Suc and GA treatments, and the number of internodes was significantly increased by the exogenous Suc treatment. The increased effect of Suc and GA exogenous treatment on the proportion of longer internodes showed a weakening trend near the plant height of 15–16 m compared with the CTRL, suggesting that these exogenous treatments may be more effective in regions where bamboo growth is suboptimal. This study demonstrated that both the exogenous Suc and GA treatments could promote internode elongation of Moso bamboo in the field. The exogenous GA treatment had a stronger effect on internode elongation, and the exogenous Suc treatment had a stronger effect on increasing the internode numbers. The increase in plant height by the exogenous Suc and GA treatments was promoted by the co-elongation of most internodes or the increase in the proportion of longer internodes.

The Impact of Phenological Gaps on Leaf Characteristics and Foliage Dynamics of an Understory Dwarf Bamboo, Sasa kurilensis

“…The use of Bayesian modelling methods present various benefits, such as allowing for distribution-type selection of the data, and providing effective data fit even with limited sample numbers. Hence, Bayesian analyses are widely utilized across numerous fields of study [ 41 , 42 , 43 ]. The dependent variables included leaf area (cm 2 leaf −1 ), leaf dry weight (mg leaf −1 ), LMA (mg cm −2 ), P nmax (μmol m −2 s −1 ), carbon and nitrogen content per leaf (%), carbon and nitrogen content per leaf area (mg cm −2 ), total number of leaves (plant −1 ), number of dead and new leaves (plant −1 ), total length of branches (m plant −1 ), average length of branches (cm), average number of branches (plant−1), and above ground biomass (g m −2 ).…”

Plant Morphology and Function, Geometric Morphometrics, and Modelling: Decoding the Mathematical Secrets of Plants

“…Exogenous sucrose and gibberellin significantly increase the internode length and total internode number of bamboo, significantly contributing to increased plant height. Gibberellin more significantly affects internode length, while sucrose increases the total internode number [12]. In addition, functional leaf traits can differ significantly between hybrid plants and their parents [13].…”