We studied fitness consequ ences of clonal integration in 27 genotypes of the stoloniferous herb Ranunculus replans in a spatially heterogeneous light environment. We grew 216 pairs of connected ramets (eight per genotype) with mother ramets in light and daughter ramets in shade, In half of the pairs we severed the stolon connection between the two ramets at the beginning of the experiment, Dur...

Coral reef degradation increases coral interactions with filamentous turf algae (FTA) and macroalgae, which may result in chronic stress for the corals. We evaluated the effects of short (2.5 month) and long (10 month) periods of FTA removal on tissue thickness (TT), zooxanthellae density (ZD), mitotic index (MI), and concentration of chlorophyll a (Chl a) in Montastraea annularis at the beginn...

†Background and Aims One of the most striking attributes of clonal plants is their capacity for physiological integration, which enables movement of essential resources between connected ramets. This study investigated the capacity of physiological integration to buffer differences in resource availability experienced by ramets of the clonal wild strawberry plant, Fragaria vesca. Specifically, ...

The study investigates the spatial pattern dynamics of Senecio rivularis on different levels of population organization: genets and ramets. The tested null hypothesis was: in the expansion phase of a population, abundance and spatial pattern are affected by the number and diversity of genet clumps, in the stable phase with limited habitat resources population size is controlled mainly within in...

The effects of physiological integration on clonal plants growing in aquatic and terrestrial habitats have been extensively studied, but little is known about the role in the extension of amphibious clonal plants in the heterogeneous aquatic-terrestrial ecotones, especially when the water environments are polluted by heavy metals. Ramets of the amphibious clonal herb Alternanthera philoxeroides...

BACKGROUND AND AIMS In clonal plants producing vegetative offspring, performance at the genet level as well as at the ramet level should be investigated in order to understand the entire picture of the population dynamics and the life history characteristics. In this study, demography, including reproduction and survival, the growth patterns and the spatial distributions of ramets within genets...

Many notorious invasive plants are clonal, living in heterogeneous or homogeneous habitats. To understand how clonal integration affects the performance of these plants in different habitat conditions, an 8-week greenhouse experiment was conducted: ramet pairs of A. philoxeroides were grown in two habitats, either heterogeneous or homogeneous in water availability, with the stolon connections e...

There are tow hierarchically organized of clonal populations are: genetic individuals (genets) can consist of many physiological individuals (ramets). Each ramet takes up resources from its local environment, but the resource pattern can be reorganized within the clone by transport between ramets. According to obsearvation measurement and surveillance of clones and their ramets of caespitose gr...

BACKGROUND AND AIMS The combination of clonality and a mating system promoting outcrossing is considered advantageous because outcrossing avoids the fitness costs of selfing within clones (geitonogamy) while clonality assures local persistence and increases floral display. The spatial spread of genetically identical plants (ramets) may, however, also decrease paternal diversity (the number of s...

Experimental studies have shown that clonal plants can reciprocally translocate assimilates and water between interconnected ramets, if grown in heterogeneous environments with complementary resource supplies. Internal exchange of different resources between spatially scattered ramets is a unique trait of clonal plants which can considerably enhance their performance in terms of biomass and clo...