BENOT, Marie-Lise; MONY, Cendrine; LEPS, J.; PENET, Laurent; BONIS, Anne

doi:10.1139/cjb-2012-0100

Métadonnées

Afficher la notice complète

Licence d’utilisation du document

BENOT, Marie-Lise
Structure et Dynamique de la Diversité

MONY, Cendrine
Ecosystèmes, biodiversité, évolution [Rennes] [ECOBIO]

LEPS, J.
Faculty of Biological Sciences

Langue

Article de revue

Ce document a été publié dans

Botany / Botanique. 2013, vol. 91, n° 2, p. 62-68

NRC Research Press

Résumé en anglais

Grazing resistance in plants, which can be defined as the ability to grow and reproduce under grazed conditions, is either associated to defoliation avoidance or tolerance. Clonal traits are often neglected when studying functional responses to grazing, despite frequent occurrence in grassland vegetation. We investigated whether clonal traits and response to defoliation were associated to increased grazing resistance. First, grazing resistance was estimated for eight clonal species using abundance patterns in a long-term field study. We then analysed its correlation with traits in undisturbed conditions and responses to defoliation in a garden experiment. A few traits were correlated to grazing resistance, though only one was a clonal trait (belowground clonal biomass). Grazing resistance was negatively correlated to shoot height and belowground clonal biomass and positively correlated to inflorescence biomass, suggesting that tall rhizomatous species investing little in sexual reproduction were at a disadvantage under grazed conditions. Both shoot height and belowground clonal biomass were negatively affected by defoliation but their decrease was significantly less for species that expressed the greatest grazing resistance in the field. Our findings show that incorporating clonal traits slightly improved predictions about field grazing resistance in the eight investigated species.< Réduire

Mots clés en italien

defoliation avoidance

defoliation tolerance

graminoids

grasses

species abundance patterns

Métadonnées

Licence d’utilisation du document

Are clonal traits and their response to defoliation good predictors of grazing resistance?

Langue

Ce document a été publié dans

Résumé en anglais

Mots clés en italien

DOI

Origine

Unités de recherche