Abstract
Understanding the mechanism of plant morphological plasticity in response to grazing and clipping of semiarid grassland can provide insight into the process of disturbance-induced decline in grassland productivity. In recent studies there has been controversy regarding two hypotheses: 1) grazing avoidance; and 2) growth limiting mechanisms of morphological plasticity in response to defoliation. However, the experimental evidence presented for the memory response to grazing and clipping of plants has been poorly reported. This paper reports on two experiments that tested these hypotheses in field and in a controlled environment, respectively. We examined the effects of long-term clipping and grazing on the functional traits and their plasticity for Leymus chinensis (Trin.) Tzvelev (the dominate species) in the typical-steppe grassland of Inner Mongolia, China. There were four main findings from these experiments. (i) The majority of phenotypic traits of L. chinensis tended to significantly miniaturize in response to long-term field clipping and grazing. (ii) The significant response of morphological plasticity with and without grazing was maintained in a hydroponic experiment designed to remove environmental variability, but there was no significant difference in L. chinensis individual size traits for the clipping comparison. (iii) Plasticity indexes of L. chinensis traits in a controlled environment were significantly lower than under field conditions indicating that plants had partial and slight memory effect to long-term grazing. (iv) The allometry of various phenotypic traits, indicated significant trade-offs between leaf and stem allocation with variations in plant size induced by defoliation, which were maintained only under grazing in the hydroponic controlled environment experiment. Taken together, our findings suggest that the morphological plasticity of L. chinensis induced by artificial clipping was different with that by livestock grazing. The miniaturization of plant size in long-term grazed grassland may reflect retained characteristics of dwarf memory for adaptation to long-term grazing by large herbivores.
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Claims 8
Claim · model-written summary
The majority of phenotypic traits of L. chinensis tended to significantly miniaturize in response to long-term field clipping.
- Taxon
- L. chinensisLeymus chinensise1
- Treatment
- long-term field clippinge1
- Outcome
- phenotypic traitse1
- Direction
- miniaturizee1
Not reportedComparator
Verbatim
e1“The majority of phenotypic traits of L. chinensis tended to significantly miniaturize in response to long-term field clipping and grazing”
Claim · model-written summary
The majority of phenotypic traits of L. chinensis tended to significantly miniaturize in response to long-term field grazing.
- Taxon
- L. chinensisLeymus chinensise1
- Treatment
- grazinge1
- Outcome
- phenotypic traitse1
- Direction
- miniaturizee1
Not reportedComparator
Verbatim
e1“The majority of phenotypic traits of L. chinensis tended to significantly miniaturize in response to long-term field clipping and grazing”
Claim · model-written summary
In the hydroponic experiment, the significant response of morphological plasticity with and without grazing was maintained.
Verbatim
e1“The significant response of morphological plasticity with and without grazing was maintained in a hydroponic experiment designed to remove environmental variability”
e2“Leymus chinensis”
Claim · model-written summary
In the hydroponic experiment there was no significant difference in L. chinensis individual size traits for the clipping comparison.
- Taxon
- L. chinensisLeymus chinensise1
- Treatment
- clippinge1
- Outcome
- individual size traitse1
- Direction
- no significant differencee1
Not reportedComparator
Verbatim
e1“there was no significant difference in L. chinensis individual size traits for the clipping comparison”
Claim · model-written summary
Plasticity indexes of L. chinensis traits in a controlled environment were significantly lower than under field conditions.
Verbatim
e1“Plasticity indexes of L. chinensis traits in a controlled environment were significantly lower than under field conditions”
Claim · model-written summary
Allometry of phenotypic traits showed significant trade-offs between leaf and stem allocation with defoliation-induced variation in plant size, maintained only under grazing in the hydroponic experiment.
- Taxon
- Leymus chinensisLeymus chinensise2
- Treatment
- defoliatione1
- Outcome
- trade-offs between leaf and stem allocatione1
- Setting
- hydroponic controlled environment experimente1
Not reportedDirection
Verbatim
e1“The allometry of various phenotypic traits, indicated significant trade-offs between leaf and stem allocation with variations in plant size induced by defoliation, which were maintained only under grazing in the hydroponic controlled environment experiment”
e2“Leymus chinensis”
Claim · model-written summary
The authors conclude that morphological plasticity of L. chinensis induced by artificial clipping differed from that induced by livestock grazing.
Verbatim
e1“the morphological plasticity of L. chinensis induced by artificial clipping was different with that by livestock grazing”
Claim · model-written summary
The authors suggest that miniaturization of plant size in long-term grazed grassland may reflect retained dwarf memory for adaptation to long-term grazing by large herbivores.
- Taxon
- Leymus chinensisLeymus chinensise2
- Treatment
- long-term grazinge1
- Outcome
- miniaturization of plant sizee1
- Qualifier
- dwarf memorye1
Verbatim
e1“The miniaturization of plant size in long-term grazed grassland may reflect retained characteristics of dwarf memory for adaptation to long-term grazing by large herbivores”
e2“Leymus chinensis”
The same questions in other papers
mechanical · growth · Leymus chinensisPositive and negative results
3 papers in the same direction as this paper · 2 in the opposite direction
- positive
- no effect
- positive
2 papers more in this group
See all 6 papers →Claims are grouped by organism, treatment and what was measured or targeted. A paper counts as positive when any of its claims in the group is positive.