Survival costs of adult dormancy and the confounding influence of size in lady's slipper orchids, genus <i>Cypripedium</i>

Shefferson, Richard P.

doi:10.1111/j.2006.0030-1299.15231.x

Cited by 53 publications

(68 citation statements)

References 55 publications

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“…For some species, prolonged dormancy decreased survival probability compared to plants that did not remain belowground (Hutchings 1987, Shefferson et al 2003; but see counterexamples in Shefferson et al [2005a], Shefferson [2006], and Lesica and Crone [2007]). However, this remobilization of structural carbon could carry a long-term cost.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Disappearing plants: why they hide and how they return

Gremer¹,

Sala²,

Crone³

2010

Ecology

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Prolonged dormancy is a life-history stage in which mature plants fail to resprout for one or more growing seasons and instead remain alive belowground. Prolonged dormancy is relatively common, but the proximate causes and consequences of this intriguing strategy have remained elusive. In this study we tested whether stored resources are associated with remaining belowground, and investigated the resource costs of remaining belowground during the growing season. We measured stored resources at the beginning and end of the growing season in Astragalus scaphoides, an herbaceous perennial in southwest Montana, USA. At the beginning of the growing season, dormant plants had lower concentrations of stored mobile carbon (nonstructural carbohydrates, NSC) than did emergent plants. Surprisingly, during the growing season, dormant plants gained as much NSC as photosynthetically active plants, an increase most likely due to remobilization of structural carbon. Thus, low levels of stored NSC were associated with remaining belowground, and remobilization of structural carbon may allow for dormant plants to emerge in later seasons. The dynamics of NSC in relation to dormancy highlights the ability of plants to change their own resource status somewhat independently of resource assimilation, as well as the importance of considering stored resources in understanding plant responses to the environment.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Disappearing plants: why they hide and how they return

Gremer¹,

Sala²,

Crone³

2010

Ecology

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“…1992; Alpert & Stuefer 1997; Hutchings 1999) and should exhibit a lower tendency towards vegetative dormancy (Shefferson 2006). In the relatively long‐lived Cypripedium system, both vegetative dormancy and survival vary by size, the former negatively and the latter positively, leading to a negative correlation where there is no real trade‐off (Shefferson 2006). In one of the few experimental studies of vegetative dormancy conducted, Shefferson et al.…”

Section: Vegetative Dormancy As Life‐history Adaptationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…2003). However, the evidence also suggests that flowering is conditioned on size such that as size increases, so does flowering (Shefferson 2006). Likewise, fruiting also appears to bear little cost in this system, but nonetheless increases with size (Shefferson & Simms 2007).…”

Section: Vegetative Dormancy As Life‐history Adaptationmentioning

confidence: 99%

The evolutionary ecology of vegetative dormancy in mature herbaceous perennial plants

Shefferson¹

2009

Journal of Ecology

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125

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Summary1. I present an evolutionary ecology interpretation of vegetative dormancy in mature herbaceous perennials. This kind of vegetative dormancy has been noted for at least 40 years, but has only recently become a topic of study. 2. Vegetative dormancy may be considered in a life-history context. Both vegetative dormancy and mortality typically decrease with increasing size. Vegetative dormancy's relationship to reproduction is more complex, because some species increase flowering and fruiting after dormancy while others do the opposite. 3. If vegetative dormancy is adaptive, then it is most likely a bet-hedging trait. Dormancy-prone plants are often long-lived, and in such organisms, bet-hedging traits should counter the effects of environmental stochasticity on adult survival. This adaptive context may vary by life span, because in shorter-lived plants, fitness is most sensitive to changes in reproduction rather than survival. 4. Vegetative dormancy could evolve if the costs of sprouting ever outweigh the benefits. The benefits of sprouting include: (i) photosynthesis and (ii) the opportunity to flower and reproduce. The costs include: (i) greater chance of herbivory, (ii) greater need for limiting nutrients, and (iii) greater maintenance costs. The many losses of photosynthesis among plants suggest that these benefits may not always outweigh the costs. 5. Vegetative dormancy may be an evolutionary step towards the loss of photosynthesis. Many non-photosynthetic plants acquire carbon from their mycorrhizal fungi. Many autotrophic, dormancy-prone plants also acquire some carbon from their mycorrhizal fungi. Further, nonphotosynthetic plants often become dormant to an even greater extent than autotrophic, dormancy-prone plants. 6. Synthesis. Vegetative dormancy often occurs in clades with non-photosynthetic, myco-heterotrophic plants, with implications for the evolution of traits involved in carbon nutrition. The links between vegetative dormancy, other life-history traits, mycorrhizas and the loss of photosynthesis should provide exciting directions for further research in plant evolutionary ecology. Particularly needed is an assessment of the physiology of vegetative dormancy, including whether the mycorrhiza is a carbon source in all dormancy-prone plant species. Equally important is a better understanding of the genetic relationships among photosynthesis, myco-heterotrophy and dormancy.

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“…While multi-strata mark-recapture statistics can provide more realistic and v www.esajournals.org unbiased estimates of transition probabilities to and from unobservable life stages such as vegetative dormancy, they could not be used here because they require survival to be held constant in order for annual transition probabilities to be estimated, and because we only allowed individuals to ''enter'' the study in the first year (Schaub et al 2004). We used these sizebased cutoffs for each stage because: (1) each population in any given year is overwhelmingly composed of individuals with 1-3 sprouts, (2) these cutoffs correspond to most of the sizebased variation in adult mortality (Shefferson 2006), and (3) the data did not allow a finer resolution to the choice in life stages, making our set of four adult life stages the minimum possible for analysis. We considered these stage classes to be ranked by aboveground size, such that vegetatively dormant plants were smallest and large plants (!3 sprouts) were largest.…”

Section: Field Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Linking vegetative dormancy to fitness in two long‐lived herbaceous perennials

et al. 2012

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Abstract. Vegetative dormancy occurs in many plant families, but its evolutionary context remains a mystery. We asked whether vegetative dormancy is an adaptive response to environmental stress and environmental stochasticity in certain long-lived plant species. We conducted an in situ experimental study in two and three populations of Cypripedium calceolus and Cephalanthera longifolia, respectively, in Estonia. Plants were defoliated, shaded, or simply observed at the beginning of the growing season in 2002 and 2003, and monitored demographically through 2008. We assessed links between fitness and vegetative dormancy using stochastic life table response experiments (SLTREs), in which the impact of treatment on the log stochastic population growth rate (a ¼ log k S ) via shifts in projection matrix transitions in treated plants relative to controls was used to assess the fitness impacts of treatment-induced life history responses. In Cypripedium, the observed lifespans of individuals that became vegetatively dormant in 2003/04 was significantly higher than plants that had not done so (P ¼ 0.050). Defoliation and shading resulted in lower levels of flowering in both species. Both defoliation and shading decreased a relative to controls in Cypripedium and Cephalanthera. Defoliation-and shading-induced shifts in transitions involving vegetative dormancy were generally associated with significantly positive SLTRE contributions to Da, and shifts in the standard deviations of demographic rates generally contributed little to Da. Thus, vegetative dormancy is likely to be an adaptive response to environmental stress and stochasticity. Further work on the genetic basis to vegetative dormancy will clarify whether enough heritability may have existed in the past, or exists now, to support vegetative dormancy as an adaptation.

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Survival costs of adult dormancy and the confounding influence of size in lady's slipper orchids, genus Cypripedium

Cited by 53 publications

References 55 publications

Disappearing plants: why they hide and how they return

Disappearing plants: why they hide and how they return

The evolutionary ecology of vegetative dormancy in mature herbaceous perennial plants

Linking vegetative dormancy to fitness in two long‐lived herbaceous perennials

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