A synthesis on roles of resource sharing between physically interconnected individuals of clonal plants

Jianyong Wang, Tongtong Xu, Yue Wang, Guangyin Li, Iram Abdullah, Zhiwei Zhong, Jushan Liu, Wanyue Zhu, Ling Wanga, Deli Wang, Fei-Hai Yub

Leymus chinensis (Trin.) Tzvel. is one of a typical rhizomatous clonal plant species in northern China and eastern Mongolia. Due to its high abilities of spatial expansion and physiological integration, L. chinensis could be widely distributed and dominant in arid and semi-arid steppes.

Clonal plants, i.e. those able to reproduce vegetatively, play important roles in many ecosystems. Connected individuals (ramets) of clonal plants can translocate and share resources such as photosynthates, water and nutrients, and such resource sharing may affect growth of clonal plants.

We synthesized published studies that examined roles of resource sharing of clonal plants, both in heterogeneous conditions where at least one environmental factor such as light, water and nutrients is spatially non-uniformly distributed, and in homogeneous conditions, where all environmental factors are spatially uniformly distributed. In heterogeneous conditions, resource sharing greatly increased growth of recipient ramets that imported resources from their interconnected donor ramets, but had no effect on growth of donor ramets that exported resources to recipient ramets, thereby enhancing growth of the whole clonal system (i.e. recipient and donor ramets together).

In homogeneous conditions, resource sharing greatly increased growth of the recipient ramets, but only slightly decreased growth of donor ramets, and thereby also increased growth of the whole clonal system. We conclude that resource sharing can benefit clonal plants in both homogeneous and heterogeneous environments. Such a beneficial effect of clonal integration may have contributed to the wide distribution of clonal plants in nature and their dominance in many ecosystems.

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