The clonal plant Scirpus olneyi A. Gray, which grows in salt marshes, shows different growth forms. This species has two types of ramets; a ramet with a long rhizome and a ramet without or with a very short rhizome. In different communities this species shows different ramet architectures in combinations of the two types of ramets. To describe ramet architecture, growth forms, life history stra...

Clonal plants spreading horizontally and forming a network structure of ramets exhibit complex growth patterns to maximize resource uptake from the environment. They respond to spatial heterogeneity by changing their internode length or branching frequency. Ramets definitively root in the soil but stay interconnected for a varying period of time thus allowing an exchange of spatial and temporal...

BACKGROUND AND AIMS Submergence and de-submergence are common phenomena encountered by riparian plants due to water level fluctuations, but little is known about the role of physiological integration in clonal plants (resource sharing between interconnected ramets) in their adaptation to such events. Using Alternanthera philoxeroides (alligator weed) as an example, this study tested the hypothe...

Macroalgae and filamentous turf algae (FTA) are abundant on degraded coral reefs, and the reproductive responses of corals may indicate sub-lethal stress under these conditions. The percentage of gametogenic stages (PGS) and the maximum diameter of eggs (MDE; or egg size) of Orbicella annularis were used to evaluate the effect of long- (7-10 months) and short-term (2.5 months) FTA removal (trea...

The effects of rhizodeposition on soil C and N availabilities lead to substantial changes of microbial community composition and processes in the rhizosphere of plants. Under heterogeneous light, photosynthates can be translocated or shared between exposed and shaded ramets by clonal integration. Clonal integration may enhance the rhizodeposition of the shaded ramets, which further influences n...

The variety of theories that have attempted to define the mechanisms of aging and life span can be broadly divided into two alternative but nonexclusive viewpoints. The first stipulates that random changes of cellular and molecular structures lead to death following progressive "wear and tear." The second argues that life span is, at least in part, genetically programmed, and therefore aging ma...

We consider the totally nonfree (TNF) action of a groups and the corresponding adjoint invariant (AD) measures on the lattices of the subgroups of the given group. The main result is the description of all adjoint-invariant and TNF-measures on the lattice of subgroups of the infinite symmetric group SN. The problem is closely related to the theory of characters and factor representations of gro...

BACKGROUND AND AIMS In clonal plants, internode connections allow translocation of photosynthates, water, nutrients and other substances among ramets. Clonal plants form large systems that are likely to experience small-scale spatial heterogeneity. Physiological and morphological responses of Fragaria vesca to small-scale heterogeneity in soil quality were investigated, together with how such h...

Clonal plants have been shown to successfully survive in stressful environments, including salinity stress, drought and depleted nutrients through clonal integration between original and subsequent ramets. However, relatively little is known about whether clonal integration can enhance the performance of clonal plants under alkalinity stress. We investigated the effect of clonal integration on ...

BACKGROUND AND AIMS Large clones of rhizomatous plants are found in many habitats, but little is known about whether such clones also occur on cliff faces where environmental conditions are extremely harsh and heterogeneous. METHODS Using molecular (intersimple sequence repeat, ISSR) markers, the genotypic composition of a cliff-face population of Oxyria sinensis in Sichuan, China, was invest...