Effects Of Patch Size And Nutrient Contrast On The Phenotypic Plasticity Of Buchloe Dactyloides

Phenotypic plasticity of clonal plants to maximize resources in the habitat, to overcomethe heterogeneity of habitats, which is one of the most important feature of clonal plants.Underthe conditions of heterogeneity of resources and environmental, clonal plants withphysiological integration modified its phenotypic plasticity to have the ability of spatialdevelopment and survival of competitiveness. With the Clonal plants Buchloe dactyloides,access to study its clonal architecture, heterogeneous environment in a heterogeneousenvironment （different patch size and different nutrient contrast）, discuss the affect of thephenotypic plasticity of Buchloe dactyloides in heterogeneous environment. The results showthat:1. Patch size effects its growth pattern, the extreme size gradually reduced to theboundaries of size （large or small size to medium size）, and the size size is0.25m*0.5m (S_1/8); in the small patch size （S1/8, S1/16and S1/64） ramets tend to be dispersed, that is, tend toguerilla clonal architecture, and the large-size patch in contrast, ramets tend to focus onhigh-nutrient patches tend to be intensive clonal architecture. In the larger patch size （S1, S1/2S1/4, S1/8）, the biomass of the patch size is reduced, decreased significantly, but to a certainsize （S1/8）, the total biomass is no longer a significant difference in equilibrium. Patch sizePhotosynthetic fluorescence characteristics of non-significant impact.2. Nutrient contrast effects growth patterns and biomass, the tillering ability of ramets, isnot subject to the constraints of the patch size, ramet growth trends in scattered guerrilla-typeclonal architecture; under high nutrient contrast （H）,plexus NO. is also not subject to theconstraints of the patch size, but high-nutrient patches within a certain range （high-nutrientpatches, size0.25m*0.25m） was intensive-like distribution, which is a transitional typeclonalarchitecture, the number of each clump biomass in low-nutrient （L）was significantly higherthan the high nutrient contrast （H）, but the high contrast has no significant effect on biomass so nutrient with little difference is more conducive to the growth of the ramets; contrast ofnutrients has no significant effect of light and fluorescence characteristics.3. The interaction of patch size and nutrient contrast effect remats NO.of each clump andbranching intensity significantly affected. Remats NO.of each clump reached in H1/4treatment significantly, branching intensity significantly in large-size （1/4）.All treatments had no significant effect on Chlorophyll photosynthetic fluorescenceparameters, which reacted plant stress physiology, because physiological and growthcharacteristics in different time scales, making the scale and nutrients contrast photosyntheticfluorescence coefficient no significant impact.In summary, clonal plants change its phenotypic plasticity to improve the adaptability ofthe heterogeneity of the environment, closely related to the patch scale and nutrient contrast.