Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-2pzkn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-08T12:50:00.982Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Dispersal of Goeppertia marantifolia clonal offspring increases with greater canopy openness and larger plant size

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 March 2017

David P. Matlaga ,
Rachel K. Snyder  and
Carol C. Horvitz
David P. Matlaga*
Affiliation:
Department of Biology, Susquehanna University, 514 University Avenue Selinsgrove, PA 17870, USA
Rachel K. Snyder
Affiliation:
Department of Biology, Susquehanna University, 514 University Avenue Selinsgrove, PA 17870, USA
Carol C. Horvitz
Affiliation:
University of Miami, Department of Biology, 1301 Memorial Drive, Coral Gables, FL 33124, USA
*
*Corresponding author. Email: matlaga@susqu.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract:

Many plants within the neotropical understorey produce both seeds and clonal offspring. Plant attributes (i.e. size) and variability in light can influence seed dispersal but it is not known if these factors influence the dispersal of clonal offspring. Our goal was to determine if canopy openness and plant size influence clonal-offspring dispersal of the herb Goeppertia marantifolia, which produces clonal bulbils on above-ground shoots. We monitored plants in permanent plots with varying levels of canopy openness in Corcovado National Park, Costa Rica. We recorded canopy openness, leaf area and the distance clonal offspring travelled from their parent plant (N = 283). Our path analysis model demonstrated that canopy openness had a strong positive effect on dispersal distance, while the association between clonal-offspring dispersal distance and parent plant leaf area was only weakly positive. On average, plants experiencing high canopy openness dispersed their clonal offspring further than plants under low canopy openness (124 cm vs. 79 cm, respectively). Contrary to studies on species that utilize rhizomes and stolons for clonal reproduction, we found that in this bulbil-producing species light availability is positively associated with clonal dispersal distance. Therefore, the influence of resource availability on spatial population dynamics of clonal species may be influenced by the species’ growth-form.

Keywords

clonal dispersalclonal mobilitydispersal distance light availabilityvegetative growth
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Tropical Ecology , Volume 33 , Issue 2 , March 2017 , pp. 107 - 113
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

LITERATURE CITED

AUGSPURGER, C.K. & FRANSON, S.E. 1988. Input of wind-dispersed seeds into light-gaps and forest sites in a Neotropical forest. Journal of Tropical Ecology 4:239–252.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
BORCHSENIUS, F., SUÁREZ, L. & PRICE, L. 2012. Molecular phylogeny and redefined generic limits of Calathea (Marantaceae). Systematic Botany 37:620–635.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
BROWN, N., JENNINGS, S., WHEELER, P. & NABE-NIELSEN, J. 2000. An improved method for the rapid assessment of forest understorey light environments. Journal of Applied Ecology 37:1044–1053.Google Scholar
BURNHAM, K.P. & ANDERSON, D.R. 2002. Model selection and multimodel inference: a practical information-theoretic approach. Springer-Verlag, New York. 488 pp.Google Scholar
CHAZDON, R.L., PEARCY, R.W., LEE, D.W. & FETCHER, D. 1996. Photosynthetic responses of tropical forest plants to contrasting light environments. Pp. 5–55 in MULKEY, S. S., CHAZDON, R. L. & SMITH, A. P. (eds). Tropical forest plant ecophysiology. Chapman and Hall, New York.Google Scholar
CLARK, D.B., CLARK, D.A., RICH, P.M., WEISS, S. & OBERBAUER, S.F. 1996. Landscape-scale evaluation of understory light and canopy structure: methods and application in a neotropical lowland rain forest. Canadian Journal of Forest Research 26:747–757.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
DE KROON, H. & HUTCHINGS, M.J. 1995. Morphological plasticity in clonal plants: the foraging concept reconsidered. Journal of Ecology 83:113–122.Google Scholar
DE KROON, H. & KNOPS, J. 1990. Habitat exploration through morphological plasticity in two chalk grassland perennials. Oikos 59:39–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
ERIKSSON, O. 1997. Clonal life histories and the evolution of seed recruitment. Pp. 211–226 in DE KROON, H. & VAN GROENENDAEL, J. (eds). The ecology and evolution of clonal plants. Backhuys Publishers, Leiden.Google Scholar
HARTSHORN, G.S. 1983. Plants: introduction. Pp. 118–157 in JANZEN, D.H. (ed.). Costa Rican natural history. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.Google Scholar
HENRY, H. & AARSSEN, L.W. 2001. Inter- and intraspecific relationships between shade tolerance and shade avoidance in temperate trees. Oikos 93:477–487.Google Scholar
HORVITZ, C.C. & LE CORFF, J. 1993. Spatial scale and dispersion pattern of ant and bird dispersed herbs in two tropical lowland rain forests. Vegetatio 107/108:351–362.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
KENNEDY, S. 1978. Systematics and pollination of the “Closed-flowered” species of Calathea (Marantaceae). University of California Publications in Botany 71:1–90.Google Scholar
KLIMEŠ, L., KLIMEŠOVA, J., HENDRIKS, R. & VAN GROENENDAEL, J. 1997. Clonal plant architecture: a comparative analyses of form and function. Pp. 1–29 in DE KROON, H. & VAN GROENENDAEL, J. (eds). The ecology and evolution of clonal plants. Backhuys Publishers, Leiden.Google Scholar
LASSO, E., DALLING, J.W. & BERMINGHAM, E. 2012. Tropical understory Piper shrubs maintain high levels of genotypic diversity despite frequent asexual recruitment. Biotropica 44:35–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MATLAGA, D.P. & HORVITZ, C.C. 2009. Growth and survival across a gap – understory gradient: contrast in performance of sexually vs. clonally produced offspring. American Journal of Botany 96:439–447.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
MITCHELL, R.L. 2001. Path analysis: pollination. Pp. 217–234 in Scheiner, S.M. & Gurevich, J. (eds). Design and analysis of ecological experiments. (Second edition). Oxford University Press, Oxford.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MOORA, M., OPIK, M., ZOBEL, K. & ZOBEL, M. 2009. Understory plant diversity is related to higher variability of vegetative mobility of coexisting species. Oecologia 159:355–361.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
PUERTA-PIÑERO, C., MULLER-LANDAU, H.C. & CALDERÓN, O. 2013. Seed arrival in tropical forest tree fall gaps. Ecology 94:1552–1562.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
RONSHEIM, M.L. 1994. Dispersal distances and predation rates of sexual and asexual propagules of Allium vineale . American Midland Naturalist 131:55–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
RONSHEIM, M.L. 1997. Distance-dependent performance of asexual progeny in Allium vineale (Liliaceae). American Journal of Botany 84:1279–1284.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
SCHLEUNING, M., HUAMÁN, V. & MATTHIES, D. 2008. Flooding and canopy dynamics shape the demography of a clonal Amazon understorey herb. Journal of Ecology 96:1045–1055.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
SVENNING, J. 2000. Growth strategies of clonal palms (Arecaceae) in a neotropical rainforest, Yasuni Ecuador. Australian Journal of Botany 48:167–178.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
TAMM, A., KULL, K. & SUMMUL, M. 2002. Classifying clonal growth forms based on vegetative mobility and ramet longevity: a whole community analysis. Evolutionary Ecology 15:383–401.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
TRAVESET, A., MORAGUES, E. & VALLADARES, F. 2008. Spreading of the invasive Carpobrotus aff. acinaciformis in Mediterranean ecosystems: the advantage of performing in different light environments. Applied Vegetation Science 11:45–54.Google Scholar
VALLEJO-MARIN, M., DORKEN, M.E. & BARRETT, S.C.H. 2010. The ecological and evolutionary consequences of clonality for plant mating. Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics 41:193–213.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
VILLEGAS, A.C. 2001. Spatial and temporal variability in clonal reproduction of Aechmea magdalenae, a tropical understory herb. Biotropica 33:48–59.Google Scholar
WAGENMAKERS, E.J. & FARRELL, S. 2004. AIC model selection using Akaike weights. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review 11:192–196.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
WANG, T., XI, L., CHUN-HUA, L. & DAN, Y. 2016. The compromising foraging of a clonal submerged plant in variable environments of substrate type and light condition: a simulation study. Journal of Plant Ecology 9:1–8.Google Scholar
WENNY, D.G. & LEVEY, D.J. 1997. Directed seed dispersal by bellbirds in a tropical cloud forest. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 95:6204–6207.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
WRIGHT, S. 1960. Path coefficients and path regressions: alternative or complementary concepts? Biometrics 16:189–202.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
XIAO, K.Y., YU, D. & WANG, J.W. 2006. Habitat selection in spatially heterogeneous environments: a test of foraging behaviour in the clonal submerged macrophyte Vallisneria spiralis . Freshwater Biology 51:1552–1559.CrossRefGoogle Scholar