Relationships between flower size, flower number, and plant size of Stellera chamaejasme population along an altitude gradient of degraded alpine grassland in Northwest China
Resource allocation strategy is one of the important contents in the study of plant life history,while the resource allocation between flower size,flower number,and plant size has a close relationship with habitat.By using the method of sampling site investigation,this paper studied the relationships between the flower size,flower number,and plant size (aboveground biomass and plant height) of Stellera chamaejasme population in degraded alpine grasslands at four different altitudes on northern slope of Qilian Mountains,Northwest China.With the increase of altitude,the aboveground biomass,plant height,and flower number of S.chamaejasme population declined gradually,but the reproductive allocation and flower size increased gradually.Along the altitude gradient,the flower number had a significant positive correlation with aboveground biomass (P＜0.01),but less correlation with plant height (P＞0.05).The flower size had less correlation with aboveground biomass and plant height (P＞0.05).The results demonstrated that the flower number of S.chamaejasme population had a significant dependency with aboveground biomass.It was observed that habitat had significant effects on the dependency among flower size,flower number,and plant size.High-altitude environmental stress induced the decrease in plant size.The S.chamaejasme plant ensured its population reproductive success via the resource allocation strategy of increasing flower size and reducing flower number.
国家科技期刊平台
NSTL
万方数据
维普
