Heritability of growth and leaf loss compensation in a long-lived tropical understorey palm.

ABSTRACT:

Introduction

Defoliation and light competition are ubiquitous stressors that can strongly limit plant performance. Tolerance to defoliation is often associated with compensatory growth, which could be positively or negatively related to plant growth. Genetic variation in growth, tolerance and compensation, in turn, plays an important role in the evolutionary adaptation of plants to changing disturbance regimes but this issue has been poorly investigated for long-lived woody species. We quantified genetic variation in plant growth and growth parameters, tolerance to defoliation and compensation for a population of the understorey palm Chamaedorea elegans. In addition, we evaluated genetic correlations between growth and tolerance/compensation.

Methods

We performed a greenhous

SUBMITTER: Jansen M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6497226 | biostudies-literature | 2019

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature