Effects of rhizome storage on sprouting, survival and establishment of new clonal ramets in Leymus chinensis

doi:10.17521/cjpe.2024.0270

Abstract

Abstract:

Aims In nature, resources essential for plant growth are heterogeneously distributed, and such environmental heterogeneity is ubiquitous. Clonal plants have evolved various strategies such as physiological integration and clonal morphological plasticity to deal with environmental heterogeneity, but the role of the resource storage capacity has been scarcely studied.

Methods Here, we buried rhizome fragments of Leymus chinensis in different lengths (0.5, 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 4.0 and 5.0 cm), each containing one bud-bearing node, in pots filled with a local soil, and recorded the sprouting status of the rhizomatous buds and the emergence and growth of the bud-forming clonal ramets.

Important findings The bud sprouting rate and the emergence rate, establishment rate, mass of newly produced clonal ramets increased with increasing length of the initial rhizome fragments, but only those clonal ramets forming on the rhizome fragments of 4.0 and 5.0 cm long could establish (i.e., grow to a self-sustaining state). These results suggest that storage of resources is an important strategy for clonal plants to deal with environmental changes and disturbances, and thus is of great significance for their growth and propagation. Additionally, our findings are potentially useful for restoring degraded grassland and for promoting grassland production and sustainability.

Key words: rhizome length, rhizome bud, bud sprouting rate, emergence rate, establishment rate

LI Bing-Sa, MA Wang, BAI Long, WANG Zheng-Wen. Effects of rhizome storage on sprouting, survival and establishment of new clonal ramets in Leymus chinensis[J]. Chin J Plant Ecol, 2025, 49(11): 1869-1877.

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URL: https://www.plant-ecology.com/EN/10.17521/cjpe.2024.0270

https://www.plant-ecology.com/EN/Y2025/V49/I11/1869

Figures/Tables 6

Fig. 1 Experimental design for planting rhizome fragments of Leymus chinensis with different initial lengths. Different numbers indicate the initial lengths of L. chinensis rhizomes buried in the pots (cm).

Table 1 Effects of initial rhizome length on the sprouting status of rhizome buds and the emergence and establishment of ramets of Leymus chinensis

	萌动 Sprouting		出土 Emergence		成苗 Establishment
	χ²	p	χ²	p	χ²	p
初始根茎片段长度 Initial length of rhizome fragments	23.234	<0.001	20.458	0.001	19.512	0.002

Table 2 Bud sprouting and ramet emergence and establishment of the rhizome fragments of Leymus chinensis with different initial lengths (mean ± SE)

初始根茎片段长度 Initial length of rhizome fragments (cm)	萌动率 Sprouting rate (%)	出土率 Emergence rate (%)	成苗率 Establishment rate (%)
0.5	0 ± 0^b	0 ± 0^b	0 ± 0^b
1.0	0 ± 0^b	0 ± 0^b	0 ± 0^b
2.0	33 ± 19.2^b	17 ± 15.2^b	0 ± 0^b
3.0	17 ± 15.2^b	17 ± 15.2^b	0 ± 0^b
4.0	83 ± 15.2^a	83 ± 15.2^a	50 ± 20.4^a
5.0	83 ± 15.2^a	67 ± 19.2^a	67 ± 19.2^a

Fig. 2 Temporal changes of height of clonal ramets originated from the rhizome fragments of Leymus chinensis of different initial lengths (mean ± SE).

Table 3 One-way ANOVA for the effects of initial length of rhizome fragments of Leymus chinensis on aboveground and underground biomass of clonal ramets originated from rhizome fragments

	地下鲜质量 Belowground fresh mass		地下干质量 Belowground dry mass		地上鲜质量 Aboveground fresh mass		地上干质量 Aboveground dry mass
	df	F	df	F	df	F	df	F
初始根茎片段长度 Initial length of rhizome fragments	5, 30	20.697^***	5, 30	7.701^***	5, 30	1.386	5, 30	1.068

Fig. 3 Aboveground and belowground fresh mass and dry mass of clonal ramets originated from rhizome fragments of Leymus chinensis of different initial lengths (mean ± SE). Different lowercase letters indicate significant differences between rhizome fragments of different initial lengths (p < 0.05).

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