Do plants explore habitats before exploiting them? An explicit test using two stoloniferous herbs

Abstract

We tested whether the processes of exploration and exploitation can be explicitly distinguished as plants grow and develop within a habitat using two stoloniferous clonal herbs, Hydrocotyle sibthorpioides (Umbelliferae) and Potentilla anserina (Rosaceae). Ramets were planted in four circular trays differing in diameter. One replicate from each diameter-group was sampled at intervals corresponding to plant coverage of the trays, and plant biomass allocation to leaves, stolons, and roots and internode length were quantified. For both species, at early sampling times (when the smallest trays were full), total plant biomass and ramet number were larger in the smaller trays than in the larger trays. However, this trend was reversed for plants collected at later times. For H. sibthorpioides, leaf mass ratios (leaf mass to total plant mass) were significantly greater, but stolon mass ratios (stolon mass to total plant mass) were less in the small trays than in the larger ones, particularly during the early stages of the experiment. Similarly, for P. anserina, leaf mass ratios decreased in the smaller trays but increased in the larger ones as the experiment progressed. Root mass ratios showed contrasting pattern to leaf mass ratios for both species; stolon mass ratios were significantly smaller in the smaller trays than in the larger ones, although there were no obvious patterns during the course of the experiment. In addition, for both species, internode length was shorter but the number of ramets was greater in the smaller trays at early sampling times. We conclude that plants invest greater biomass in resource-exploring organs (stolons) than in resource-exploiting organs (leaves or roots) as they initially establish in a habitat. The relatively lower plant productivity in the largest trays at early sampling times presumably reflects the cost of exploration prior to resource exploitation and utilization.clonal plant, foraging behavior, exploring and exploiting behavior, biomass allocation, life history tradeoff

Effects of neighbour location and nutrient distributions on root foraging behaviour of the common sunflower

“…Treatment (2P-Alone or 2P-Neighbour; figure 1), day (9-15) and their interaction were fixed effects, and plant identity was as a random effect. Root length was the response variable (figure 3 exploitation of resources in plants [53]. Although this trade-off has not been tested directly in plant root foraging, at least one plant species, Achillea millefolium, stops exploring the soil after encountering a high-nutrient patch and proliferating roots within it [3], which may be in part due to trade-offs between exploitation and further exploration of the soil.…”

Heterogeneous water supply affects growth and benefits of clonal integration between co-existing invasive and native Hydrocotyle species

“…(Apiaceae) is a stoloniferous perennial clonal species that is native to Asia 38 . It can adapt to a wide variety of conditions, ranging from relative dryness to complete submergence, in habitats as diverse as forest understorey, mountain slopes, and grasslands to wet valleys and wetlands 39 . This species produces stolons with rooted ramets on its nodes.…”

Changes in the Amount and Distribution of Soil Nutrients and Neighbours Have Differential Impacts on Root and Shoot Architecture in Wheat (Triticum aestivum)

“…This foraging strategy would reduce the need to extensively search the rest of the pot for a potential nutrient patch or higher-quality soil. Plants experience a trade-off between exploration of the environment and exploitation of resources [106,107], which is comparable to animals as they move and forage across landscapes [108,109]. Thus, they may invest more energy in pre-empting resources within a high-nutrient patch, ensuring direct access by increasing preliminary root growth [49,100].…”