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Evidence for unexpected higher benefits of clonal integration in nutrient-rich conditions

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Abstract

Physiologically integrated clonal plants cope better with spatial heterogeneity due to their ability to share resources among ramets. According to theoretical predictions and experimental evidence, such benefits of resource sharing should increase with higher patch quality of an exporting ramet and lower patch quality of an importing ramet. This study investigated the effect of spatial heterogeneity in nutrient availability on benefits of clonal integration under plausible scenarios of clonal spread, in which more developed ramets give rise to new ones. Pairs of mother and daughter ramets of a stoloniferous grass, Agrostis stolonifera, were grown in various nutrient conditions. Disconnected pairs of ramets were used as controls. Results showed considerable benefits of integration for developmentally younger daughters and no costs for older mothers in all treatments. Surprisingly, benefits of integration were more pronounced in nutrient-rich daughters, and allocation to integrated daughters decreased with increasing nutrient level of mothers. In addition, integration in general increased root-to-shoot ratio of daughters. One possible explanation of the observed patterns may be prevailing translocation of photosynthates rather than nutrients. Daughters also responded to nutrients by changes in clonal architecture. Number of stolons increased, and maximum stolon length decreased in high nutrient levels. Integration increased maximum stolon length in small daughters. The architectural responses are generally in accord with the foraging behaviour concept. Overall, our results suggest that resource translocation within a clonal fragment need not be easily predictable from a gradient of resource availability.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Tomáš Herben for his helpful comments and to Magdalena Lučanová for ploidy estimation of the used Agrostis stolonifera clone. J. D. was supported by Charles University Grant Agency project No. 132616, and M. W. was supported by Czech Science Foundation project No. 16-19245S. The experiment complies with the current laws of the Czech Republic.

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  1. Department of Botany, Faculty of Science, Charles University, Benátská 2, 128 43, Praha 2, Czech Republic

    Jana Duchoslavová & Martin Weiser

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  1. Jana Duchoslavová
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  2. Martin Weiser
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Correspondence to Jana Duchoslavová.

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ESM 1

Plant biomass and architectural data reported in the paper. Plants excluded from all the analyses are not included in the dataset. Plants excluded only from the analyses of architectural responses are marked. (XLS 107 kb)

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Duchoslavová, J., Weiser, M. Evidence for unexpected higher benefits of clonal integration in nutrient-rich conditions. Folia Geobot 52, 283–294 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12224-016-9274-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12224-016-9274-8

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