Response of Cucumis sativus to Neighbors in a Species-Specific Manner

Abstract

Plants exhibit various behaviors of growth and allocation that play an important role in plant performance and social interaction as they grow together. However, it is unclear how Cucumis sativus plants respond to different neighbors. Here, we performed 5 neighbor combinations with C. sativus as the focal species. The selected materials of C. sativus responded to neighbors and exhibited different behavior strategies in a species-specific manner. All competition treatments reduced the growth of C. sativus seedlings to a certain extent, but only the Eruca sativa neighbor treatment reached a significant level in total root length and shoot biomass. Compared with growing under solitary conditions, focal plants avoided, tended to and did not change their allocation to their nearby plants. The larger the biomass of their neighbors, the stronger the inhibition of the focal plants. In addition, no significant correlations between growth and allocation variables were found, suggesting that growth and allocation are two important aspects of C. sativus behavioral strategies. Our findings provide reference and support for agricultural production of C. sativus, but further research and practice are still needed.

Soybean triggers morphological responses of tomato roots by modifying P capture under low P condition

“…The root placement patterns of seedlings were altered and roots grew towards soybean, total root length and root dry weight in the 'Toward' region were signi cantly more than those in the 'Away' region, but not to other species, which suggested that root morphological response was not a common phenomenon. And our ndings were consistent with previous research results that the responses of plants to their neighbors were species-speci c (Ulbrich et al 2022;Zhang et al 2023).…”

“…In order to investigate the morphological response of tomato roots to different intercropping plants, the horizontal asymmetry was calculated according to the total root length and root biomass (Zhang et al 2023). If value = 0.5 indicates no response, value > 0.5, tendency, and value < 0.5, avoidance to intercropping plant.…”

Allelopathic Responses of Crop Species to Chromolaena odorata Root Exudate Extracts: A Comprehensive Study

“…C. sativus emerged as the least affected species, maintaining high germination rates throughout the treatments. This resilience could be advantageous for intercropping systems, where C. sativus could be paired with crops susceptible to C. odorata's allelopathic effects to mitigate overall yield losses (Zhang, Yan and Wu, 2022). Inhibition of C. sativus when co-cultivated with neighboring plant species, such as Eruca sativa suggested a species-specific manner (Sahid and Yusoff, 2014).…”