Abstract
Body size is one of the most important factors regarding herbaceous perennial plants life-histories, and several fitness components of these organisms are related to size. Clonal plants show distinct kinds of reproduction and can develop offspring by sexual or asexual ways. We aimed to understand how body size affects Comanthera nivea (Eriocaulaceae) sexual reproduction and to verify how clonal growth is related to flower head production in this species. We sampled 600 rosettes in rupestrian grasslands and performed linear regression analysis between body size and number of produced flower heads. We also compared the flower head production between isolated rosettes and rosettes within clones. Our results showed that body size was significantly related, but explained only a small part of flower head production. The flower head production was higher in rosettes within clones than in isolated ones. The clones presented a rosette or a small group of rosettes that concentrated the sexual reproduction. Clonality was positively associated with sexual reproduction. Clonality can represent an important way of allowing the persistence of plants by sexual reproduction in markedly seasonal stressful environments. The cases of clonality enhancing the sexual reproduction must be considered and put in focus on reproductive biology research.
Highlights
Body size is one of the most important factors regarding herbaceous perennial plants life-histories and several fitness components of these organisms are related to size (Méndez and Karlsson, 2004)
For the genus Leiothrix (Eriocaulaceae), Coelho et al (2008a,b) showed the existence of species using both reproductive strategies to survive and persist in rupestrian grasslands, but there is no literature dealing with the effect of clonal growth on the investment on sexual reproduction for Eriocaulaceae species
The amount of variation explained by this variable was small, indicating low relationship between body size and sexual reproduction in C. nivea (Figure 1)
Summary
Body size is one of the most important factors regarding herbaceous perennial plants life-histories and several fitness components of these organisms are related to size (Méndez and Karlsson, 2004). For the genus Leiothrix (Eriocaulaceae), Coelho et al (2008a,b) showed the existence of species using both reproductive strategies to survive and persist in rupestrian grasslands, but there is no literature dealing with the effect of clonal growth on the investment on sexual reproduction for Eriocaulaceae species This life history pattern may have arisen because the plants of this family had evolved in environments with strong abiotic selective pressures like shallow soils, seasonal lack of water on soil, and low nutritional conditions
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