Latzel Vít, Münzbergová Zuzana
Department of Population Ecology, Institute of Botany, The Czech Academy of Sciences, Průhonice, Czechia.
Department of Botany, Faculty of Science, Charles University, Prague, Czechia.
Front Plant Sci. 2018 Dec 11;9:1847. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2018.01847. eCollection 2018.
Active foraging for patchy resources is a crucial feature of many clonal plant species. It has been recently shown that plants' foraging for resources can be facilitated by anticipatory behavior via association of resource position with other environmental cues. We therefore tested whether clones of are able to associate and memorize positions of soil nutrients with particular light intensity, which will consequently enable them anticipating nutrients in new environment. We trained clones of for nutrients to occur either in shade or in light. Consequently, we tested their growth response to differing light intensity in the absence of soil nutrients. We also manipulated epigenetic status of a subset of the clones to test the role of DNA methylation in the anticipatory behavior. Clones of were able to associate presence of nutrients with particular light intensity, which enabled them to anticipate nutrient positions in the new environment based on its light intensity. Clones that had been trained for nutrients to occur in shade increased placement of ramets to shade whereas clones trained for nutrients to occur in light increased biomass of ramets in light. Our study clearly shows that the clonal plant is able to relate two environmental factors, light and soil nutrients, and use this connection in anticipatory behavior. We conclude that anticipatory behavior can substantially improve the ability of clonal plants to utilize scarce and unevenly distributed resources.
积极觅食斑块状资源是许多克隆植物物种的一个关键特征。最近的研究表明，植物通过将资源位置与其他环境线索联系起来的预期行为，可以促进其对资源的觅食。因此，我们测试了[植物名称]的克隆体是否能够将土壤养分的位置与特定光照强度联系起来并记忆，从而使其能够在新环境中预测养分。我们训练[植物名称]的克隆体在阴暗处或光照下获取养分。随后，我们测试了它们在没有土壤养分的情况下对不同光照强度的生长反应。我们还操纵了一部分克隆体的表观遗传状态，以测试DNA甲基化在预期行为中的作用。[植物名称]的克隆体能够将养分的存在与特定光照强度联系起来，这使它们能够根据光照强度在新环境中预测养分位置。在阴暗处接受养分训练的克隆体增加了分株在阴暗处的分布，而在光照下接受养分训练的克隆体增加了分株在光照下的生物量。我们的研究清楚地表明，克隆植物[植物名称]能够关联光照和土壤养分这两个环境因素，并在预期行为中利用这种联系。我们得出结论，预期行为可以显著提高克隆植物利用稀缺且分布不均的资源的能力。
