Abstract
The karst habitats of southwestern China are characterized by a highly heterogeneous distribution of water resources. We hypothesized that the clonal integration between connected ramets of the clonal vine Ficus tikoua was an important adaptive strategy to the patchy distribution of water resources in these habitats. We grew ramet pairs (each consisting of a parent and an offspring ramet) in both homogeneously and heterogeneously watered conditions. The offspring ramets were well-watered, whereas their connected parent ramets were randomly assigned to four water treatments: well-watered, mild water stress, moderate water stress, and severe water stress. Increasing water stress decreased leaf water potential, relative water content, net assimilation rate, maximum quantum yield of PSII (F v/F m), and biomass of the parent ramets. Subjecting the parents to water stress significantly increased root biomass and root mass ratio (RMR) of their offspring ramets. Exploitation of plentiful water resources through the increased adventitious roots connected to another soil patch permitted the complete restoration of water relations and photosynthetic capacity of offspring ramets after an initial depression. Water relations and gas exchange of the parents were not affected by the water supply to their connected offspring ramets, suggesting that offspring ramets hardly exported water to the stressed parents. However, net assimilation rate and proline content of the offspring ramets increased when they were connected to water-stressed parents. The compensatory photosynthetic responses of offspring ramets connected to stressed parents revealed an increasing trend as the experiment progressed. Morphological and physiological plasticity of F. tikoua in response to heterogeneous water resources allow them to adapt to karst habitats and be suitable candidates for vegetation restoration projects.
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Acknowledgments
We thank Prof. **ao-Li Wei and Mr. Chang-** Li for their help during the experiment. We thank Prof. Fei-Hai Yu for their valuable suggestions on the manuscript. This research was supported by the National Basic Research Program of China (973 Program No. 2006CB403206) and the Knowledge Innovative Project of Chinese Academy of Sciences (No. kzcx2-yw-306).
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Communicated by J. Zwiazek.
An erratum to this article can be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11738-010-0584-9
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Liu, CC., Liu, YG., Guo, K. et al. Exploitation of patchy soil water resources by the clonal vine Ficus tikoua in karst habitats of southwestern China. Acta Physiol Plant 33, 93–102 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11738-010-0520-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11738-010-0520-z