Skip Navigation



AOBPreview published online on August 11, 2006
Annals of Botany, doi:10.1093/aob/mcl172
This Article
Right arrow FREE Full Text (PDF) Freely available
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
98/4/885    most recent
mcl172v1
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 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 arrowRequest Permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by MONTESINOS, D.
Right arrow Articles by GARCÍA-FAYOS, P.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by MONTESINOS, D.
Right arrow Articles by GARCÍA-FAYOS, P.
Agricola
Right arrow Articles by MONTESINOS, D.
Right arrow Articles by GARCÍA-FAYOS, P.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

© The Author 2006. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Annals of Botany Company. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org
Received March 16, 2006
Revised May 10, 2006
Accepted June 16, 2006

Article

When, How and How Much: Gender-specific Resource-use Strategies in the Dioecious Tree Juniperus thurifera

D. MONTESINOS 1 *, M. DE LUÍS 2, M. VERDÚ 1, J. RAVENTÓS 3, and P. GARCÍA-FAYOS 1

1 Centro de Investigaciones sobre Desertificación--CIDE (CSIC-UV-GV), Camí de la Marjal s/n, 46470, Albal, València, Spain
2 Departamento de Geografía y O.T. Universidad de Zaragoza, C/Pedro Cerbuna, 12, 50009, Zaragoza, Spain
3 Departament d'Ecologia, Universitat d'Alacant, Carretera S. Vicent del Raspeig s/n, 03080, Sant Vicent del Raspeig, Alacant, Spain

* To whom correspondence should be addressed.
D. MONTESINOS, E-mail: Daniel.Montesinos{at}uv.es


  Abstract

• Background and Aims In dioecious species male and female plants experience different selective pressures and often incur different reproductive costs. An increase in reproductive investment habitually results in a reduction of the resources available to other demands, such as vegetative growth. Tree-ring growth is an integrative measure that tracks vegetative investment through the plant's entire life span. This allows the study of gender-specific vegetative allocation strategies in dioecious tree species thoughout their life stages.

• Methods Standard dendrochronological procedures were used to measure tree-ring width. Analyses of time-series were made by means of General Mixed Models with correction of autocorrelated values by the use of an autoregressive covariance structure of order one. Bootstrapped correlation functions were used to study the relationship between climate and tree-ring width.

• Key Results Male and female trees invest a similar amount of resources to ring growth during the early life stages of Juniperus thurifera. However, after reaching sexual maturity, tree-ring growth is reduced for both sexes. Furthermore, females experience a significantly stronger reduction in growth than males, which indicates a lower vegetative allocation in females. In addition, growth was positively correlated with precipitation from the current winter and spring in male trees but only to current spring precipitation in females.

• Conclusions Once sexual maturity is achieved, tree rings grow proportionally more in males than in females. Differences in tree-ring growth between the genders could be a strategy to respond to different reproductive demands. Therefore, and responding to the questions of when, how and how much asked in the title, it is shown that male trees invest more resources to growth than female trees only after reaching sexual maturity, and they use these resources in a different temporal way.

Keywords: Dendrochronology, sexual maturity, resource allocation, trade-offs, Juniperus.
Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?


This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
 Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USAHome page
J. M. H. Knops, W. D. Koenig, and W. J. Carmen
Negative correlation does not imply a tradeoff between growth and reproduction in California oaks
PNAS, October 23, 2007; 104(43): 16982 - 16985.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]


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.