Invasion strategies in clonal aquatic plants

Invasion strategies in clonal aquatic plants

Invasion strategies in clonal aquatic plants
Invasion strategies in clonal aquatic plants

The successful spread of invasive plants is often linked to a diverse gene pool that facilitates local adaptation to variable environmental conditions: but what about clonal plants? Riis et al. study three non-native, clonally reproducing macrophytes, Egeria densa, Elodea canadensis and Lagarosiphon major, and find that field populations display remarkably little genetic variation and show little interaction between habitat conditions and plant morphological characteristics. The results strongly suggest that invasive clonal aquatic plants adapt to a wide range of habitats in introduced areas by phenotypic plasticity rather than local adaptation.

botanyone

The Annals of Botany Office is based at the University of Oxford.

Read this in your language

The Week in Botany

On Monday mornings we send out a newsletter of the links that have been catching the attention of our readers on Twitter and beyond. You can sign up to receive it below.

@BotanyOne on Mastodon

Loading Mastodon feed...

Audio


Archive