Abstract: Clonality is the ability of an organism, in natural conditions, to spontaneously produce independent or potentially independent offspring with the same genotype as their parents via clonal growth or clonal reproduction. Plants that possess clonality are clonal plants. They are ubiquitous in various types of ecosystems and dominate many ecosystems such as grasslands, tundra, wetlands and bamboo forests and play vital roles therein. Therefore, exploring clonal plants’ responses to and effects on changing environments and then their adaptive significances can deepen our understanding of the key processes and factors determining ecosystem composition, structure, functions and services, and help establish reliable natural solution-based ecosystem conservation and restoration techniques and programs. Starting from concept of plant clonality and clonal traits and in conjunction with over 40 years of progress in clonal plant ecology, we systematically tease out ecological responses of clonal plants to environmental changes, review the effects of clonal plants on ecosystems’ composition, structure, functions and services, and summarize basic and applied aspects of clonal plant ecology in the background of sustainable development. Finally, we propose future research directions of clonal plant ecology: using trait-based response-effect approach as new paradigm for clonal plant ecology/plant clone ecology; conducting clonal plant research in the context of vital eco-environmental challenges such as global climate change, land degradation, environmental pollution, biological invasion, and biodiversity loss; answering clonal plant ecology, plant clone ecology and and other-related scientific questions, at multiple organizational levels from individual to ecosystem; strengthening clonal plant research at the level of community/ecosystem; exploring phylogenetic pattern and molecular evolution process of plant clonality.

Key words: clonal plant, ecological adaptation, ecological effect, ecological response