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Host age affects the performance of the root hemiparasitic plant Rhinanthus alectorolophus

Interactions between root hemiparasitic plants and their hosts are strongly affected by host identity, but may also depend on the condition of the host. An important determinant of host quality could be host age, as it may influence host size, allocation patterns, responses to infection, and the str...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Moncalvillo, Belén, Matthies, Diethart
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10242892/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37287855
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ece3.10167
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author Moncalvillo, Belén
Matthies, Diethart
author_facet Moncalvillo, Belén
Matthies, Diethart
author_sort Moncalvillo, Belén
collection PubMed
description Interactions between root hemiparasitic plants and their hosts are strongly affected by host identity, but may also depend on the condition of the host. An important determinant of host quality could be host age, as it may influence host size, allocation patterns, responses to infection, and the strength of competition for light between parasite and host. We investigated the effects of host species identity, host age and above‐ground separation of hemiparasite and host on the interactions between the hemiparasite Rhinanthus alectorolophus and five host species in a factorial experiment. The host species were planted at six different times, from 10 weeks before the parasite was planted to 4 weeks after. Host age strongly influenced the performance of the parasite, but these effects also varied among host species. Parasites grew largest with hosts planted at the same time or 2 weeks earlier, but their performance strongly declined both with increasing host age and with the time they grew autotrophically. A large part of the variation due to host age but not of that due to host species identity could be related to the negative influence of host size at the likely time of parasite attachment. The low quality of older hosts was not due to light competition, suggesting that effective exploitation of these hosts was prevented by other factors like harder roots, stronger defense against parasite attack or competition for resources taken up by the host roots. Suppression of host growth by the parasites declined with increasing host age. The results indicate that the choice of host age may influence the results of studies on hemiparasites. They also highlight the importance for annual root hemiparasites of attachment in early spring, that is, at a time when their mostly perennial hosts produce fresh roots but are still poorly developed above ground.
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spelling pubmed-102428922023-06-07 Host age affects the performance of the root hemiparasitic plant Rhinanthus alectorolophus Moncalvillo, Belén Matthies, Diethart Ecol Evol Research Articles Interactions between root hemiparasitic plants and their hosts are strongly affected by host identity, but may also depend on the condition of the host. An important determinant of host quality could be host age, as it may influence host size, allocation patterns, responses to infection, and the strength of competition for light between parasite and host. We investigated the effects of host species identity, host age and above‐ground separation of hemiparasite and host on the interactions between the hemiparasite Rhinanthus alectorolophus and five host species in a factorial experiment. The host species were planted at six different times, from 10 weeks before the parasite was planted to 4 weeks after. Host age strongly influenced the performance of the parasite, but these effects also varied among host species. Parasites grew largest with hosts planted at the same time or 2 weeks earlier, but their performance strongly declined both with increasing host age and with the time they grew autotrophically. A large part of the variation due to host age but not of that due to host species identity could be related to the negative influence of host size at the likely time of parasite attachment. The low quality of older hosts was not due to light competition, suggesting that effective exploitation of these hosts was prevented by other factors like harder roots, stronger defense against parasite attack or competition for resources taken up by the host roots. Suppression of host growth by the parasites declined with increasing host age. The results indicate that the choice of host age may influence the results of studies on hemiparasites. They also highlight the importance for annual root hemiparasites of attachment in early spring, that is, at a time when their mostly perennial hosts produce fresh roots but are still poorly developed above ground. John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2023-06-06 /pmc/articles/PMC10242892/ /pubmed/37287855 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ece3.10167 Text en © 2023 The Authors. Ecology and Evolution published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article under the terms of the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research Articles
Moncalvillo, Belén
Matthies, Diethart
Host age affects the performance of the root hemiparasitic plant Rhinanthus alectorolophus
title Host age affects the performance of the root hemiparasitic plant Rhinanthus alectorolophus
title_full Host age affects the performance of the root hemiparasitic plant Rhinanthus alectorolophus
title_fullStr Host age affects the performance of the root hemiparasitic plant Rhinanthus alectorolophus
title_full_unstemmed Host age affects the performance of the root hemiparasitic plant Rhinanthus alectorolophus
title_short Host age affects the performance of the root hemiparasitic plant Rhinanthus alectorolophus
title_sort host age affects the performance of the root hemiparasitic plant rhinanthus alectorolophus
topic Research Articles
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10242892/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37287855
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ece3.10167
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