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Zhang XM, He LX, Xiao X, Lei JP, Tang M, Lei NF, Yu FH, Chen JS. Clonal integration benefits an invader in heterogeneous environments with reciprocal patchiness of resources, but not its native congener. Front Plant Sci 2022; 13:1080674. [PMID: 36531348 PMCID: PMC9751628 DOI: 10.3389/fpls.2022.1080674] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/26/2022] [Accepted: 11/18/2022] [Indexed: 06/17/2023]
Abstract
Many of the world's most invasive plants are clonal, and clonal functional traits are suggested to contribute to their invasiveness. Clonal integration is one of the most important clonal functional traits, but it is still unclear whether clonal integration can benefit invasive alien clonal plants more than native ones in heterogeneous environments with reciprocal patchiness of resources and whether invasive plants show a higher capacity of division of labor than native ones in such environments. We grew connected (allowing clonal integration) and disconnected (preventing clonal integration) ramet pairs of an invasive plant Wedelia trilobata and its occurring native congener W. chinensis in the environment consisting of reciprocal patches of light and soil nutrients (i.e., a high-light but low-nutrient patch and a low-light but high-nutrient patch). Clonal integration greatly promoted the growth of the invasive species, but had no significant effect on the native one. Both invasive and native species showed division of labor in terms of morphology, biomass allocation, and/or photosynthetic physiology, but the capacity of labor division did not differ between the invasive and the native species. We conclude that in heterogeneous environments consisting of reciprocal patches of resources, which are common in nature, clonal integration can confer invasive plants a competitive advantage over natives, but this difference is not related to their capacity of labor division. This study highlights the importance of clonal integration for plants in heterogeneous environments and suggests that clonal integration can contribute to the invasion success of alien clonal plants.
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Affiliation(s)
- Xiao-Mei Zhang
- Zhejiang Provincial Key Laboratory of Plant Evolutionary Ecology and Conservation, Institute of Wetland Ecology & Clone Ecology, Taizhou University, Taizhou, China
- College of Life Science, Sichuan Normal University, Chengdu, China
| | - Lin-Xuan He
- Zhejiang Provincial Key Laboratory of Plant Evolutionary Ecology and Conservation, Institute of Wetland Ecology & Clone Ecology, Taizhou University, Taizhou, China
- College of Life Science, Sichuan Normal University, Chengdu, China
| | - Xiao Xiao
- College of Life Science, Sichuan Normal University, Chengdu, China
| | - Jing-Pin Lei
- Research Institute of Forestry, Chinese Academy of Forestry, Beijing, China
| | - Min Tang
- Zhejiang Provincial Key Laboratory of Plant Evolutionary Ecology and Conservation, Institute of Wetland Ecology & Clone Ecology, Taizhou University, Taizhou, China
| | - Ning-Fei Lei
- College of Ecology and Environment, Chengdu University of Technology, Chengdu, China
| | - Fei-Hai Yu
- Zhejiang Provincial Key Laboratory of Plant Evolutionary Ecology and Conservation, Institute of Wetland Ecology & Clone Ecology, Taizhou University, Taizhou, China
| | - Jin-Song Chen
- College of Life Science, Sichuan Normal University, Chengdu, China
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