Reproductive strategies of psammophytes in semi-arid areas
The dune ecosystem is strongly disturbed by sand burial and wind erosion.Although it is well established that plants are more adaptive to disturbance through reproductive strategies,little is known about the reproductive strategies of psammophytes to adapt to disturbance of aeolian sand.In view of this,I examined reproductive strate-gies of typical psammophytes,Agriophylum squarrosum,Artemisia wudanica,Phragmites communis and Salix gordejevii,in the semi-arid Horqin Sandy Land.Through a systematic study,I found 2 reproductive mechanisms to raise seed availability(resistance to long-distance dispersal and continuous supply of diaspores),2 reproductive mechanisms by using clonal reproduction to adapt active sand(defense type and migratory type),4 reproductive mechanisms to deal with wind erosion(mechanism of sexual reproduction in moving sand dunes,mechanism of sex-ual reproduction in interdune lowland,sexual and asexual reproduction mechanisms in sand dunes,and mechanism of asexual reproduction in interdune lowland),and 4 mutual feedback mechanisms between reproductive patterns and aeolian sand activities(wind erosion and sand burial promote sexual reproduction of dune plants,wind erosion and sand burial promote sexual reproduction of lowland plants in the interdune,wind erosion and sand burial pro-mote vegetative reproduction of dune plants,and wind erosion and sand burial adjust vegetative reproduction of low-land plants).This paper is a conceptualized and summarized report of reproductive strategies of psammophytes.
sand burialwind erosionseed availabilitymutual feedback mechanismHorqin Sand Land
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