Warming in combination with increased precipitation mediate the sexual and clonal reproduction in the desert steppe dominant species Stipa breviflora

BMC Plant Biology

Research Article

Fengyan Yi¹  Xiao Qiu¹  Hailian Sun¹  Taogetao Baoyin²  Lingling Chen²  Zhenying Huang³  Xuehua Ye³  Hongxia Cao⁴ 

[1] Inner Mongolia Academy of Agricultural and Animal Husbandry Sciences, 010030, Hohhot, China;Ministry of Education Key Laboratory of Ecology and Resource Use of the Mongolian Plateau and Inner Mongolia Key Laboratory of Grassland Ecology, School of Ecology and Environment, Inner Mongolia University, 010021, Hohhot, China;State Key Laboratory of Vegetation and Environmental Change, Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, No.20 Nanxincun, 100093, Xiangshan, Beijing, China;Suzhou Vocational Technical College, 234099, Suzhou, China;

关键词: Climate change;    Reproductive ramet;    Tillerous clonal plant;    Trade-off;    Vegetative ramet;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s12870-023-04439-w

 received in 2022-04-04, accepted in 2023-09-01,  发布年份 2023

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundClonal plants can successfully adapt to various ecosystems. A trade-off between sexual and clonal reproduction is generally assumed in clonal plants, which may be influenced both by the characteristics of the plant itself and environmental conditions. Currently, it is unclear how climate change, and specifically warming and increased precipitation, might affect sexual and clonal reproduction in clonal plants. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate both the sexual and clonal reproduction responses of Stipa breviflora to warming and increased precipitation. A controlled experiment was conducted by inducing increases in precipitation (ambient condition, 25% and 50% increases) and warming (ambient temperature, 1.5 °C and 3.0 °C increases).ResultsWarming significantly influenced both the ratio of reproductive ramet shoot biomass to total shoot biomass, and the ratio of reproductive ramet number to total ramet number. Additionally, the ratio of reproductive ramet shoot biomass to total shoot biomass was also significantly affected by increased precipitation. Increased precipitation benefited sexual reproduction, while effects of warming on reproductive and/or vegetative ramets varied from negative to positive depending on precipitation conditions. There was no relationship between the number or shoot biomass of reproductive ramets and vegetative ramets. Reproductive ramets displayed greater sensitivity to climate change than vegetative ramets.ConclusionsThe findings of our study suggest that there was no trade-off between sexual and clonal reproduction in S. breviflora. The combined impact of warming and increased precipitation promoted sexual reproduction but did not inhibit clonal reproduction. Clonal plants with the capacity for both sexual and clonal reproduction, may cope with climate change well via clonal reproduction, ensuring their survival.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© BioMed Central Ltd., part of Springer Nature 2023

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