Patterns of Ramet Survivorship in Clonal Fragments of the Stoloniferous Plant Potentilla Anserina
1988
Eriksson, O. (Ove)
One of the suggested adaptive benefits of clonal propagation is the reduced mortality risk experienced by genets that produce several ramets each capable of suffering independent mortality. The hypothesis that the mortality of each ramet of a clonal plant is independent of the fate of other ramets on that plant was tested by use of demographic data from a 4—yr study of a seashore meadow population of Potentilla anserina. This plant produces vegetative daughter ramets that become physiologically independent during their 1st yr of life. Frequency distributions of the number of surviving ramets originating from the same mother ramet were not significantly different from what was predicted by a model that assumed independent mortality of ramets. This result is consistent with the initial hypothesis. However, other results imply that the fate of ramets is influenced by the fate of other ramets of the same clone. Ramet survivorship was related to clone size during one of the year. Furthermore, nodal position of daughter ramets on stolons affected survivorship. In contrast, the distance between consecutive ramets on the same stolon, and the fate of sibling ramets on the same stolon, did not significantly influence ramet survivorship.
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