Abstract
Nursing behaviour, also known as breastfeeding behaviour, is the feeding of juvenile individuals with nutrients or proteins from matures especially in mammals. As a hypothetical phenomenon in bamboo forests, mature bamboos have transferred photoassimilates to young bamboos for recovering and rebuilding their photosystems especially in winter. This process is accompanied by changes in the ability of photosystems and the mass fraction of non-structural carbohydrates (NSCs), structural carbohydrates (SCs), and lignin. We analysed carbohydrates and chlorophyll fluorescence to compare the physiological traits in mature (age 2, 3, 4) and immature (age 1) Moso bamboos (Phyllostachys edilus) during a year using the Portable Chlorophyll Fluorometer (PCF) and the Liquid Chromatographic (LC) method. The results showed that the mass fraction of total soluble carbohydrates (TSCs) and starch in the bottom of bamboo at age 1 was higher than other parts and ages in spring, whereas the mass fraction of TSCs, starch, and sucrose at age 3 was higher than other parts and ages in winter. The Fv/Fm, an indicator to reveal photosystems were functional or not, at age 1 dramatically dropped when the cold current attacked first time in October, and then quickly recovered in November. Our findings indicate that mature bamboos very possibly provide carbohydrates to immature bamboos and help them rebuild their photosystems when a bamboo forest resists cold stress.
Highlights
Nursing behaviour, known as breastfeeding behaviour, is the feeding of juvenile individuals with nutrients or proteins from matures especially in mammals
Soluble carbohydrates are mostly composed of glucose, fructose, and sucrose, while starch is polymerised from glucose
Measuring the mass fraction of non-structural carbohydrates and chlorophyll fluorescence parameters, we reveal that mature bamboos probably provide carbohydrates to young bamboos for rebuilding photosynthetic systems in winter, which confirms the behaviour of mature bamboos to feed offspring for maintaining the survival probability of young individuals
Summary
Known as breastfeeding behaviour, is the feeding of juvenile individuals with nutrients or proteins from matures especially in mammals. As a hypothetical phenomenon in bamboo forests, mature bamboos have transferred photoassimilates to young bamboos for recovering and rebuilding their photosystems especially in winter This process is accompanied by changes in the ability of photosystems and the mass fraction of non-structural carbohydrates (NSCs), structural carbohydrates (SCs), and lignin. Moso bamboo (Phyllostachys edilus) is a kind of broadly distributed bamboo species with its leptomorph rhizome systems in east Asia[1,2,3,4] Because it has leptomorph rhizome systems, some studies assume that mature bamboos perhaps provide nutrients and carbohydrates to bamboo shoot[5] and juvenile bamboos[1,3,6].
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