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Morphological plasticity of Primula nutans to hummock-and-hollow microsites in an alpine wetland

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Abstract

Hummock-and-hollow microtopography is common in wetlands of the Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau. The physical environment of hummocks contrasts strongly with that of hollows. To address how Primula nutans Georgi, a herbaceous species broadly distributed on the plateau, can inhabit both hummocks and hollows, we investigated the plasticity of its morphology and biomass growth in relation to the environmental variables during the growing season. The results are as follows: (1) total daily photosynthetic photon flux density, maximum soil temperature, and diurnal soil temperature range were significantly larger on the hummocks than in the hollows; (2) individual ramets had smaller leaves, higher leaf mass per unit area, and shorter petiole and peduncle length on the hummocks, but leaf and root dry weights per ramet differed little between microsites; (3) P. nutans allocated most of its dry mass to peduncles and flowers and the proportion of reproductive mass was significantly higher for plants in the hollows than on the hummocks; (4) the coefficients of variation of most morphological and biometric parameters was higher on hummocks than in hollows. The results suggest that P. nutans favors hummocks but can tolerate hollows through morphological adjustments in that the mass investment to peduncles and flowers is much larger in plants in the hollows than hummocks.

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Acknowledgments

This study was supported by the 21st Century COE Program of the University of Tokyo, “Biodiversity and Ecosystem Restoration,” sponsored by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, and by the Global Environment Research Program S1-I(2) grant from the Ministry of the Environment of Japan. The authors thank Dr. Aayako Shimono (National Institute for Environmental studies, Japan) for her advice and assistance with the fieldwork. We thank Dr. Mingyuan Du for his kind permission to use the photograph in Fig. 1. We also thank Drs. Xiaoyong Cui (Graduate University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, China), Hiroyuki Muraoka (Gifu University, Japan), Hibiki Noda (Tokyo University, Japan), Mitsuru Hirota (National Institute for Environmental studies, Japan), and Song Gu, Yingnian Li, Xinquan Zhao (Northwest Institute of Plateau Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China) for their assistance in our study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Ecosystem Studies, Institute of Agriculture and Life Science, The University of Tokyo, 1-1-1 Yayoi, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, 113-8657, Japan

    Haihua Shen & Izumi Washitani

  2. National Institute for Environmental Studies, Onogawa 16-2, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, 305-8506, Japan

    Haihua Shen & Yanhong Tang

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  1. Haihua Shen
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  2. Yanhong Tang
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  3. Izumi Washitani
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Correspondence to Haihua Shen.

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Shen, H., Tang, Y. & Washitani, I. Morphological plasticity of Primula nutans to hummock-and-hollow microsites in an alpine wetland. J Plant Res 119, 257–264 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10265-006-0269-z

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