Burial Depth and Stolon Internode Length Independently Affect Survival of Small Clonal Fragments

Abstract

Disturbance can fragment plant clones into different sizes and unstabilize soils to different degrees, so that clonal fragments of different sizes can be buried in soils at different depths. As a short-term storage organ, solon internode may help fragmented clones of stoloniferous plants to withstand deeper burial in soils. We address (1) whether burial in soils decreases survival and growth of small clonal fragments, and (2) whether increasing internode length increases survival and growth of small fragments under burial. We conducted an experiment with the stoloniferous, invasive herb Alternanthera philoxeroides, in which single-node fragments with stolon internode of 0, 2, 4 and 8 cm were buried in soils at 0, 2, 4 and 8 cm depth, respectively. Increasing burial depth significantly reduced survival of the A. philoxeroides plants and increased root to shoot ratio and total stolon length, but did not change growth measures. Increasing internode length significantly increased survival and growth measures, but there was no interaction effect with burial depth on any traits measured. These results indicate that reserves stored in stolon internodes can contribute to the fitness of the A. philoxeroides plants subject to disturbance. Although burial reduced the regeneration capacity of the A. philoxeroides plants, the species may maintain the fitness by changing biomass allocation and stolon length once it survived the burial. Such responses may play an important role for A. philoxeroides in establishment and invasiveness in frequently disturbed habitats.

Sand burial compensates for the negative effects of erosion on the dune-building shrub Artemisia wudanica

“…2C). One probable explanation would be that the energy stored by vegetative buds was not sufficient to make them sprout under severe burial (Dong et al 2011). …”

Burial depth and diameter of the rhizome fragments affect the regenerative capacity of a clonal shrub

“…Such disruptions are particularly stressful for clonal plants, whose stolons or rhizomes, located in the shallow soil layer, are likely to be fragmented, further destabilizing soils to varying degrees and burying different-sized clonal fragments at different depths (Dong et al, 2011;Stuefer and Huber, 1999). In response, clonal plants growing in frequently disturbed habitats have developed some coping strategies Puijalon et al, 2008;Latzel and Klimešová , 2009).…”

“…In response, clonal plants growing in frequently disturbed habitats have developed some coping strategies Puijalon et al, 2008;Latzel and Klimešová , 2009). For example, solon internodes may help fragmented clones of stoloniferous plants withstand the fragmentation, and survive at deeper sand burial depths (Stuefer and Huber, 1999;Dong et al, 2011).…”

“…effects of disturbances on the regeneration capacity of clonal fragments of shrubs, and little is known about the responses of rhizome clonal fragments to soil burial, or the role of rhizome fragments in the regeneration capacity of shrub fragments after burial (Dong et al, 2011;West et al, 2012). In this study, therefore, we selected a typical rhizomatous perennial shrub to study the effects of fragment size and burial depth on the regenerative capacity of clonal shrubs.…”

“…Numerous studies have shown that sand burial influences the germination of seeds (Zhang and Maun, 1990;Huang and Gutterman, 1998;Huang et al, 2004) and the growth of both seedlings (Maun, 1994;Li et al, 2010) and adult plants (Maun, 1996;Li et al, 2010). A few studies also have tested the effects of burial on the regeneration capacity of clonal fragments (Chen et al, 2010;Dong et al, 2011). Increasing burial depth significantly reduced survival rates of Alternanthera philoxeroides plants and increased root-to-shoot ratio and total stolon length, but did not change growth (Dong et al, 2011).…”