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Plant invasiveness is not linked to the capacity of regeneration from small fragments: an experimental test with 39 stoloniferous species

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Abstract

Fragmentation and vegetative regeneration from small fragments may contribute to population expansion, dispersal and establishment of new populations of introduced plants. However, no study has systematically tested whether a high capacity of vegetative regeneration is associated with a high degree of invasiveness. For small single-node fragments, the presence of internodes may increase regeneration capacity because internodes may store carbohydrates and proteins that can be used for regeneration. We conducted an experiment with 39 stoloniferous plant species to examine the regeneration capacity of small, single-node fragments with or without attached stolon internodes. We asked (1) whether the presence of stolon internodes increases regeneration from single-node fragments, (2) whether regeneration capacity differs between native and introduced species in China, and (3) whether regeneration capacity is positively associated with plant invasiveness at a regional scale (within China) and at a global scale. Most species could regenerate from single-node fragments, and the presence of internodes increased regeneration rate and subsequent growth and/or asexual reproduction. Regeneration capacity varied greatly among species, but showed no relationship to invasiveness, either in China or globally. High regeneration capacity from small fragments may contribute to performance of clonal plants in general, but it does not appear to explain differences in invasiveness among stoloniferous clonal species.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Wei Guo for assistance with the experiment, Wayne Dawson for compiling the GCW data, Peter Alpert for valuable comments on the early version of the manuscript. This research was supported by the External Cooperation Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (Grant GJHZ0904 to FHY) and NSFC (Grant 31070371 to FHY; 39825106 to MD), and the Sino-Swiss Science and Technology Cooperation (Grant JRP IZLC3 123973 to MvK).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Vegetation and Environmental Change, Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100093, China

    Yao-Bin Song, Fei-Hai Yu & Ming Dong

  2. College of Nature Conservation, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing, 100083, China

    Fei-Hai Yu

  3. Institute of Ecology, Taizhou University, Linhai, 317000, China

    Jun-Min Li

  4. Institute of Plant Sciences, University of Bern, Altenbergrain 21, 3013, Bern, Switzerland

    Lidewij H. Keser & Markus Fischer

  5. Ecology, Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, Universitätsstrasse 10, 78457, Konstanz, Germany

    Lidewij H. Keser & Mark van Kleunen

  6. Graduate University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100039, China

    Yao-Bin Song

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  1. Yao-Bin Song
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Correspondence to Fei-Hai Yu.

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Song, YB., Yu, FH., Li, JM. et al. Plant invasiveness is not linked to the capacity of regeneration from small fragments: an experimental test with 39 stoloniferous species. Biol Invasions 15, 1367–1376 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10530-012-0374-y

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