Key Laboratory of Southwest China Wildlife Resources Conservation, Ministry of Education, and College of Life Sciences, China West Normal University, Nanchong, Sichuan, 637009, China.
School of Urban-rural Planning and Landscape Architecture, Xuchang University, Xuchang, 461000, China.
Sci Rep. 2017 Apr 11;7(1):801. doi: 10.1038/s41598-017-00894-2.
Recent studies have demonstrated that plants can determine the identity of neighbouring roots (e.g., self and non-self, kin and non-kin), but whether they can discriminate by sex remains an open question. Here, we predict that dioecious plants can modulate their root performance in response to local root conditions related to sex. Female and male Populus cathayana cuttings were planted in a greenhouse in root-owner (one individual without a root neighbour) or root-sharer pairs (two individuals with roots neighbouring each other) with equal amounts of nutrients and space per plant in three combinations (females-females, males-males or females-males); root morphology, biomass and allocation were investigated. P. cathayana root-sharers altered their root growth in same-sex but not in different-sex combinations. Females enhanced root growth and allocation but decreased root proliferation (greater diameter with reduced branching and specific root length) in the presence of a female root neighbour, while males reduced root growth but increased root morphological proliferation in contact with another male. Therefore, the effect of a neighbour of the same sex differed from that of a neighbour of the opposite sex, which suggests that these plants can recognize the sexual identity of their neighbours.
最近的研究表明，植物可以识别邻近根系的身份（例如，自交和异交、亲缘和非亲缘），但它们是否能通过性别来区分，这仍然是一个悬而未决的问题。在这里，我们预测雌雄异株植物可以根据与性别相关的局部根系条件来调节根系性能。将雌性和雄性的银白杨插条种植在温室中，每株植物在相同数量的养分和空间下，种植在根主（一个没有根邻居的个体）或根共享者对（两个彼此相邻根系的个体）中，有三种组合（雌性-雌性、雄性-雄性或雌性-雄性）；研究了根形态、生物量和分配。银白杨根共享者改变了同性别但不改变不同性别组合中的根生长。在有雌性根邻居的情况下，雌性增强了根的生长和分配，但减少了根的增殖（更大的直径，分支减少，比根长减少），而雄性与另一个雄性接触时则减少了根的生长，但增加了根形态的增殖。因此，同性别邻居的影响不同于异性别邻居的影响，这表明这些植物可以识别邻居的性别身份。
