Journal Article

Root responses to neighbors depend on neighbor identity and resource distribution

Rajaniemi, Tara K., Garlick, Kelsey, Drew, Robert E.

2021

Overview

Purpose In a complex soil environment, competitive and environmental factors interact with individual traits to influence a plant’s root growth patterns and ability to compete for resources. Here, we examine how root growth of a focal plant, Plantago lanceolata L., responds to resource heterogeneity and to presence of two neighbor species, Centaurea jacea L.and Poa pratensis L. Methods A full factorial experiment tested the effects of nutrient heterogeneity, neighbors, and their interaction on root responses of Plantago . Roots in shared quadrants of a pot were harvested and quantified by qPCR for plants grown alone or with a neighbor, in patchy or even soil. The effects of experimental treatments on Plantago root mass distribution were tested with two-way ANOVA. Results When soil resources were evenly distributed, Plantago individuals increased root allocation to soil shared with a Centaurea neighbor but not a Poa neighbor. When soil resources were patchy, Plantago responded more strongly to Poa than to Centaurea , and placed more roots in the high-resource patch. Conclusions These results demonstrate that plants can respond differently to neighbors depending on species and that integrating multiple cues results in non-additive effects on root behavior.

• Publisher: Springer Science + Business Media,Springer International Publishing,Springer,Springer Nature B.V
• Subject: Agriculture / Analysis / Analysis of variance / Biomedical and Life Sciences / Centaurea / Centaurea jacea / Ecology / edaphic factors / English plantain / Environmental factors / Factorial experiment designs / Factorial experiments / Growth / Growth patterns / Heterogeneity / Life Sciences / Mass distribution / Methods / ORIGINAL ARTICLE / Plant growth / Plant Physiology / Plant Sciences / Plantago / Plantago lanceolata / Poa pratensis / Polymerase chain reaction / root growth / Roots / Roots (Botany) / soil / Soil ecology / Soil environment / Soil Science & Conservation / Soils / Variance analysis