Intraspecific competition and light effect on reproduction of Ligularia virgaurea, an invasive native alpine grassland clonal herb

Ecology and Evolution

Tian-peng Xie¹  Ge-fei Zhang¹  Zhi-gang Zhao¹  Guo-zhen Du¹ 

[1] State Key Laboratory of Glassland and Agro-Ecosystems, School of Life Sciences, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, China

关键词: Clonal growth;    intraspecific competition;    light;    Ligularia virgaurea;    sexual reproduction;    threshold size;   

DOI  :  10.1002/ece3.975

来源: Wiley

【 摘 要 】

Abstract

The relationship between sexual reproduction and clonal growth in clonal plants often shows up at the ramet level. However, only a few studies focus on the relationship at the genet level, which could finally account for evolution. The sexual reproduction and clonal growth of Ligularia virgaurea, a perennial herb widely distributed in the alpine grasslands of the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau of China, were studied under different competition intensities and light conditions at the genet level through a potted experiment. The results showed that: (1) sexual reproduction did not depend on density or light, and increasing clonal growth with decreasing density and increasing light intensity indicated that intraspecific competition and light intensity may affect the clonal life history of L. virgaurea; (2) both sexual reproduction and clonal growth show a positive linear relationship with genet size under different densities and light conditions; (3) a threshold size is required for sexual reproduction and no evidence of a threshold size for clonal growth under different densities and light conditions; (4) light level affected the allocation of total biomass to clonal and sexual structures, with less allocation to clonal structures and more allocation to sexual structures in full sunlight than in shade; (5) light determined the onset of sexual reproduction, and the genets in the shade required a smaller threshold size for sexual reproduction to occur than the plants in full sunlight; and (6) no evidence was found of trade-offs between clonal growth and sexual reproduction under different densities and light conditions at the genet level, and the positive correlation between two reproductive modes indicated that these are two integrated processes. Clonal growth in this species may be viewed as a growth strategy that tends to maximize genet fitness.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2014 The Authors. Ecology and Evolution published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

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