Root:shoot ratio in developing seedlings: How seedlings change their allocation in response to seed mass and ambient nutrient supply.

ABSTRACT: Root:shoot (R:S) biomass partitioning is one of the keys to the plants' ability to compensate for limiting resources in the environment and thus to survive and succeed in competition. In adult plants, it can vary in response to many factors, such as nutrient availability in the soil or reserves in the roots from the previous season. The question remains whether, at the interspecific level, reserves in seeds can affect seedlings' R:S ratio in a similar way. Proper allocation to resource-acquiring organs is enormously important for seedlings and is likely to determine their survival and further success. Therefore, we investigated the effect of seed mass on seedling R:S biomass partitioning and its interaction with nutrient supply in the substrate. We measured seedling biomass partitioning un

SUBMITTER: Maskova T 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6065327 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature