Dataset Information

Shade Avoidance and Light Foraging of a Clonal Woody Species, Pachysandra terminalis.

ABSTRACT: (1) Background: A central subject in clonal plant ecology is to elucidate the mechanism by which clones forage resources in heterogeneous environments. Compared with studies conducted in laboratories or experimental gardens, studies on light foraging of forest woody clonal plants in their natural habitats are limited. (2) Methods: We investigated wild populations of an evergreen clonal understory shrub, Japanese pachysandra (Pachysandra terminalis Siebold & Zucc.), in two cool-temperate forests in Japan. (3) Results: Similar to the results of herbaceous clonal species, this species formed a dense stand in a relatively well-lit place, and a sparse stand in a shaded place. Higher specific rhizome length (i.e., length per unit mass) in shade resulted in lower ramet population density in shade. The individual leaf area, whole-ramet leaf area, or ramet height did not increase with increased light availability. The number of flower buds per flowering ramet increased as the canopy openness or population density increased. (4) Conclusions: Our results provide the first empirical evidence of shade avoidance and light foraging with morphological plasticity for a clonal woody species.

SUBMITTER: Iwabe R

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8074284 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Shade Avoidance and Light Foraging of a Clonal Woody Species, <i>Pachysandra terminalis</i>.

Iwabe Risa R Koyama Kohei K Komamura Riko R

Plants (Basel, Switzerland) 20210420 4

(1) Background: A central subject in clonal plant ecology is to elucidate the mechanism by which clones forage resources in heterogeneous environments. Compared with studies conducted in laboratories or experimental gardens, studies on light foraging of forest woody clonal plants in their natural habitats are limited. (2) Methods: We investigated wild populations of an evergreen clonal understory shrub, Japanese pachysandra (<i>Pachysandra terminalis</i> Siebold & Zucc.), in two cool-temperate f ...[more]

PMID: 33924069

Similar Datasets

Project description:AimsAccording to traditional ecophysiological theories stress tolerance of plants is predominately determined by universal physiochemical constraints. Plant acclimation to environmental stress therefore compromises plant performance under a different stress, hindering successful toleration of several abiotic stress factors simultaneously. Yet, recent studies have shown that these trade-offs are less exclusive than postulated so far, leaving more wiggle room for gaining polytolerance through adaptations We tested whether the polytolerance to shade and drought depends on cold and waterlogging tolerances - hypothesizing that polytolerance patterns in different species groups (angiosperms vs. gymnosperms; deciduous vs. evergreen; species originating from North America, Europe and East Asia) depend on the length of the vegetation period and species's dormancy through limiting the duration of favourable growing season.LocationNorthern hemisphere.MethodsOur study analyzed four main abiotic stress factors - shade, drought, cold and waterlogging stress - for 806 Northern hemisphere woody species using cross-calibrated tolerance rankings. The importance of trade-offs among species ecological potentials was evaluated using the species-specific estimates of polytolerance to chosen factors.ResultsWe found that both cold and waterlogging tolerance are negatively related to species' capabilities of simultaneously tolerating low light and water conditions. While this pattern was different in angiosperms and gymnosperms, species region of origin and leaf type had no effect on this relationship.Main conclusionsOur results demonstrate that adaptation to different abiotic stress factors in woody plants is highly complex. Vegetation period length and dormancy are the key factors explaining why woody plants are less capable of tolerating both shade and drought in habitats where vegetation period is relatively short and water table high. While dormancy enables angiosperms to more successfully face additional stress factors besides shade and drought, gymnosperms have lower polytolerance, but are better tolerators of shade and drought when other environmental factors are favorable.

Dataset Information

Shade Avoidance and Light Foraging of a Clonal Woody Species, Pachysandra terminalis.

Publications

Shade Avoidance and Light Foraging of a Clonal Woody Species, <i>Pachysandra terminalis</i>.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets