Patchy habitats, division of labour and growth dividends in clonal plants.
Natural habitats are patchy in quality. in clonal plants, resource-acquiring structures often occupy sites that differ in quality. Clonal plants can display division of labour in resource-acquisition duties, manifested as local specialization by ramets, which enhances acquisition of each resource from sites of greatest abundance. Physiological integration can re-distribute resources internally from sites of acquisition to clone parts sited where the same resources are scarce. Recent research is showing that such specialization and resource sharing is a highly efficient strategy for acquiring resources and that it can result in considerably greater growth when resources are heterogeneously distributed than when the same quantity of resources is distributed homogeneously.
School of Biological Sciences, University of Sussex, Falmer, Brighton, Sussex, UK BN1 9QG.
M J
MJ
Hutchings
D K
DK
Wijesinghe