Skip Navigation


AOBPreview originally published online on May 24, 2007
Annals of Botany 2007 100(1):51-54; doi:10.1093/aob/mcm086
This Article
Right arrow Full Text Freely available
Right arrow FREE Full Text (PDF) Freely available
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
100/1/51    most recent
mcm086v1
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in ISI Web of Science
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrow Search for citing articles in:
ISI Web of Science (1)
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Liu, F.-H.
Right arrow Articles by Dong, M.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Liu, F.-H.
Right arrow Articles by Dong, M.
Agricola
Right arrow Articles by Liu, F.-H.
Right arrow Articles by Dong, M.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?


© The Author 2007. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Annals of Botany Company. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Large Clones on Cliff Faces: Expanding by Rhizomes through Crevices

Feng-Hong Liu1, Fei-Hai Yu1,*, Wen-Sheng Liu1, Bertil O. Krüsi2, Xiao-Hu Cai3, Jakob J. Schneller4 and Ming Dong1,*

1 State Key Laboratory of Vegetation and Environmental Change, Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100093, China
2 University of Applied Sciences Zürich-Wädenswil (HSW), Grüental Postfach 335, 8820 Wädenswil, Switzerland
3 Sichuan Academy of Forestry, 18 Xinghui West Road, Chengdu 610081, Sichuan, China
4 Institute of Systematic Botany, University of Zürich, Zollikerstrasse 107, CH-8008 Zürich, Switzerland

* For correspondence. E-mail feihaiyu{at}ibcas.ac.cn or dongming{at}ibcas.ac.cn

Received: 22 January 2007    Returned for revision: 2 March 2007    Accepted: 14 March 2007    Published electronically: 24 May 2007

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 investigated.

Key Results: The 98 O. sinensis ramets sampled belonged to 12 different genotypes (clones). The three most frequent clones were represented with 45, 22 and 12 ramets, respectively; the remaining nine were represented with only one to five ramets. The three largest clones spanned at least 2·7 m in the vertical direction and 4·6–6·9 m in the horizontal direction on the cliff face.

Conclusions: On the cliff face, large clones of O. sinensis are formed by rhizomes growing along the crevices. Expansion by rhizomes may help O. sinensis to exploit the patchy resources and support establishment and growth of new ramets. Moreover, rooted ramets connected by rhizomes may effectively reduce the susceptibility of O. sinensis to rock fall and erosion and thus greatly improve the chances for long-term survival. The multi-clone structure indicates that sexual reproduction is also important for the long-term persistence of O. sinensis populations on cliffs.

Key words: Cliff ecology, clonal diversity, clonal growth, genet distribution, Oxyria sinensis, rhizomatous plants


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?




Disclaimer: Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.