Context-Dependent Parental Effects on Clonal Offspring Performance.

Bi-Cheng Dong,Mark Van Kleunen,Fei-Hai Yu

doi:10.3389/fpls.2018.01824

Bi-Cheng Dong, Mark Van Kleunen + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2018.01824

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Abstract

Parental environments may potentially affect offspring fitness, and the expression of such parental effects may depend on offspring environments and on whether one considers an individual offspring or all offspring of a parent. Using a well-studied clonal herb, Alternanthera philoxeroides, we first grew parent plants in high and low soil-nutrient conditions and obtained 1st generation clonal offspring from these two environments. Then we grew offspring of these two types of 1st generation clonal offspring also in high and low nutrient conditions. We measured and analyzed mean performance and summed performance of the four types of 2nd generation clonal offspring. High nutrient availability of parental environments markedly increased both mean performance (i.e., the average fitness measure across all individual offspring produced by a parent) and summed performance (i.e., the sum of the fitness measure of all offspring produced by a parent) of the 2nd generation clonal offspring. The positive parental effects on summed performance of the 2nd generation clonal offspring were stronger when the 1st generation clonal offspring grew in the high instead of the low nutrient conditions, but the positive parental effects on their mean performance did not depend on the nutrient environments of the 1st generation clonal offspring. The results provide novel evidence that parental environmental effects persist across vegetative generations and strongly depend on offspring environments and levels of plants.

Highlights

Vegetative reproduction is a life-history trait that contributes to the wide distribution of clonal plants in natural habitats (Sosnová et al, 2011)
While many studies have tested parental effects on performance of sexual offspring, few have tested those on performance of clonal offspring and little is known about whether parental effects can persist across clonal generations (Latzel and Klimešová, 2010; Huber et al, 2014; González et al, 2016)
Parental effects have been increasingly documented at the individual level, they have rarely been explored at the level of the whole offspring generation

Summary

Introduction

Vegetative reproduction is a life-history trait that contributes to the wide distribution of clonal plants in natural habitats (Sosnová et al, 2011). Clonal (vegetative) offspring ramets are repeatedly produced by parent ramets during the life cycle of clonal plants, and environmental effects experienced by parents may influence performance of clonal offspring. Such parental (environmental) effects have been increasingly considered an important life-history property, acting as an environmental link across generations and influencing the rapid adaptation of offspring to new environments (Schwaegerle et al, 2000; Donohue, 2009; Mousseau et al, 2009; Latzel and Klimešová, 2010; González et al, 2016). While many studies have tested parental effects on performance of sexual offspring, few have tested those on performance of clonal offspring and little is known about whether parental effects can persist across clonal generations (Latzel and Klimešová, 2010; Huber et al, 2014; González et al, 2016)

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