distinguishing the biomass allocation variance resulting from ontogenetic drift or acclimation to soil texture区分生物量分配差异产生的个体发生的漂移或适应土壤质地.pdfVIP

Distinguishing the Biomass Allocation Variance Resulting from Ontogenetic Drift or Acclimation to Soil Texture 1,2 1 1,2 1 1 Jiangbo Xie , Lisong Tang , Zhongyuan Wang , Guiqing Xu , Yan Li * 1 State Key Lab of Desert and Oasis Ecology, Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Urumqi, Xinjiang, People’s Republic of China, 2 Graduate School, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, People’s Republic of China Abstract In resource-poor environments, adjustment in plant biomass allocation implies a complex interplay between environmental signals and plant development rather than a delay in plant development alone. To understand how environmental factors influence biomass allocation or the developing phenotype, it is necessary to distinguish the biomass allocations resulting from environmental gradients or ontogenetic drift. Here, we compared the development trajectories of cotton plants (Gossypium herbaceum L.), which were grown in two contrasting soil textures during a 60-d period. Those results distinguished the biomass allocation pattern resulting from ontogenetic drift and the response to soil texture. The soil texture significantly changed the biomass allocation to leaves and roots, but not to stems. Soil texture also significantly changed the development trajectories of leaf and root traits, but did not change the scaling relationship between basal stem diameter and plant height. Results of nested ANOVAs of consecutive plant-size categories in both soil textures showed that soil gradients explained an average of 63.64–70.49% of the variation of biomass allocation to leaves and roots. Ontogenetic drift explained 77.47% of