Greater flowering and response to flooding in Lythrum virgatum than L. salicaria (purple loosestrife).

ABSTRACT: Newly introduced trait diversity can spur rapid evolution and facilitate local adaptation in the introduced plant Lythrum salicaria. The horticultural plant L. virgatum might further introduce meaningful trait variation by escaping into established L. salicaria populations or by hybridizing with L. salicaria. Although many experiments have focused on L. salicaria genotypes, relatively little is known about L. virgatum ecology. We used a greenhouse common garden to compare traits and flood response of L. salicaria and L. virgatum collected from two sources each in their native range. We tested the hypotheses that these two wetland taxa have comparable responses to flooding (inundation), and that flood tolerance correlated to higher fit

SUBMITTER: Mattingly KZ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10041361 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature