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Root morphology, histology and chemistry of nine fern species (pteridophyta) in a temperate forest

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Abstract

Aims

The variability patterns of fern root characteristics have seldom been studied. Here we explored variability in root morphology, histology and chemistry among fern species of temperate forest, and compared the observed patterns with those of seed plants.

Methods

We sampled nine herbaceous fern species from temperate forest in northeastern China, and measured root morphological, histological and chemical characteristics across branch orders for each species.

Results

All nine fern species had 3 or 4 root orders. With increasing root order, diameter, tissue density, cortical thickness and vascular cylinder diameter increased, while specific root length (SRL) and tissue nitrogen concentration decreased. These were similar to the variability patterns that have been reported for seed plants, except for cortex. Like seed plants, nine fern species showed close relationships among root morphological, histological and chemical characteristics in first-order roots, such as diameter and cortex, tissue density and nitrogen concentration, suggesting that the general linkage between root structure and function exists in all vascular plants.

Conclusions

The observed variation within fern root systems is comparable to the reported variation in seed plants, indicating that the same functional constraints control the evolution and development of root systems in vascular plants belonging either to the fern or seed plant lineages.

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Acknowledgments

The authors thank Guoyong Yan, Zhenyu Wang, Na Xu, Xuewei Zhang, Yue Zhang, and Liting Li for their help with the field and laboratory work, and Drs. Chuankuan Wang and Harbin Li for editing the manuscript and insightful comments. This research was supported by Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (DL12CA06), Natural Science Foundation of China (31100470, 30130160) and the Program for Changjiang Scholars and Innovative Research Team in University (IRT1054).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Forestry, Northeast Forestry University, Harbin, 150040, China

    Xueyun Dong, Hongfeng Wang, Jiacun Gu, Yan Wang & Zhengquan Wang

  2. School of Science, Harbin University, Harbin, 150086, China

    Xueyun Dong

  3. Center for Ecological Research, Northeast Forestry University, Harbin, 150040, China

    Jiacun Gu

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  1. Xueyun Dong
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  2. Hongfeng Wang
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Correspondence to Zhengquan Wang.

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Responsible Editor: Alexia Stokes.

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Dong, X., Wang, H., Gu, J. et al. Root morphology, histology and chemistry of nine fern species (pteridophyta) in a temperate forest. Plant Soil 393, 215–227 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-015-2484-7

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