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

(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 ha...

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Autores principales: Iwabe, Risa, Koyama, Kohei, Komamura, Riko
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8074284/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33924069
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/plants10040809
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author Iwabe, Risa
Koyama, Kohei
Komamura, Riko
author_facet Iwabe, Risa
Koyama, Kohei
Komamura, Riko
author_sort Iwabe, Risa
collection PubMed
description (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.
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spelling pubmed-80742842021-04-27 Shade Avoidance and Light Foraging of a Clonal Woody Species, Pachysandra terminalis Iwabe, Risa Koyama, Kohei Komamura, Riko Plants (Basel) Communication (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. MDPI 2021-04-20 /pmc/articles/PMC8074284/ /pubmed/33924069 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/plants10040809 Text en © 2021 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Communication
Iwabe, Risa
Koyama, Kohei
Komamura, Riko
Shade Avoidance and Light Foraging of a Clonal Woody Species, Pachysandra terminalis
title Shade Avoidance and Light Foraging of a Clonal Woody Species, Pachysandra terminalis
title_full Shade Avoidance and Light Foraging of a Clonal Woody Species, Pachysandra terminalis
title_fullStr Shade Avoidance and Light Foraging of a Clonal Woody Species, Pachysandra terminalis
title_full_unstemmed Shade Avoidance and Light Foraging of a Clonal Woody Species, Pachysandra terminalis
title_short Shade Avoidance and Light Foraging of a Clonal Woody Species, Pachysandra terminalis
title_sort shade avoidance and light foraging of a clonal woody species, pachysandra terminalis
topic Communication
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8074284/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33924069
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/plants10040809
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