Relationships Between Flooding Tolerance, Life History, and Short‐term Competitive Performance in Three Species of Polygonum

Abstract

The objective of this study was to compare the growth and short‐term (single season) competitive performance of three species of Polygonum known to differ in flooding tolerance and life history. Polygonum amphibium is a perennial with low sexual reproductive effort and a relatively high degree of flooding tolerance, P. lapathifolium is an annual species with a high sexual reproductive effort and a low tolerance to flooding, and P. hydropiperoides is intermediate to the other two in terms of sexual reproductive effort and flooding tolerance. In order to determine the relative growth and competitive abilities of these species, mixtures and monocultures of plants were grown in pots and maintained under three flooding regimes: 1) flooded, 2) partially drained, and 3) well drained. Both P. hydropiperoides and P. amphibium grew best under flooded and partially drained conditions with reduced growth in the drained treatment. Polygonum lapathifolium, in contrast, grew as well in the drained treatment as in the more flooded treatments. Results from competition experiments were consistent in showing the relative competitive abilities to be P. lapathifolium > P. hydropiperoides > P. amphibium regardless of flooding regime. Thus, short‐term competitive performance was found to trade off with flood tolerance rather than with sexual reproductive effort.

PHENOTYPIC PLASTICITY INPOLYGONUM PERSICARIA.II. NORMS OF REACTION TO SOIL MOISTURE AND THE MAINTENANCE OF GENETIC DIVERSITY

“…Furthermore, growth and reproduction were maintained at close to maximum levels at the flooded treatment, although such flooding constitutes an extreme plant environment, and one often limited to specialized wetland species (Kramer 1983;Heathcote et aI. 1987;Carter and Grace 1990).…”

VARIATION IN ALCOHOL DEHYDROGENASE ACTIVITY AND FLOOD TOLERANCE IN WHITE CLOVER, TRIFOLIUM REPENS

“…Alternatively, flood-tolerant individuals are poor competitors under nonflooded conditions. The existence of some trade-offs for being flood-tolerant is not completely surprising; many studies have demonstrated an inverse relationship between the ability of plants to tolerate abiotic stress and their ability to compete (Grime, 1979;Hart, 1980;del Moral, 1983;Keddy, 1990;Carter and Grace, 1990). However, T. repens growing under greenhouse conditions has no apparent trade-offs for being flood tolerant; the relative growth rate without flooding is not correlated to the relative growth rate with flooding.…”

Modelling the impacts of reservoir operations on the downstream riparian vegetation and fish habitats in the Lijiang River

“…At each site, five points that formed an The physiological parameters of each species were obtained from control experiments (Figure 4) by using flume and green house, and the existing literature (Timson 1965(Timson , 1966Mitchell 1976;Carter & Grace 1990;Vandersman et al 1993a, b;Nabben et al 1999). Both of the two hygrophyte species, R. maritimus and P. hydropiper, showed flood tolerance.…”