Flee or fight uncertainty : Plant strategies in relation to anticipated damage

Summary, in English

In order to cope with damage, plants have evolved a number of strategies. We incorporate two of those strategies, compensatory regrowth and escaping damage in time, into a mathematical model in an attempt to outline under what circumstances one or the other of these phenotypic traits will evolve. Escaping damage in time is accomplished by flowering and setting seeds at a point of time when the risk of damage is low, whereas a compensatory capacity is made possible by activating a proportion of meristems that are left dormant. Our analysis suggests that damage that is predictable in time will favour phenotypes that flower late in the season and that have a good compensatory capacity. As damage becomes less predictable in time, a strategy that implies flowering as early as possible in the season and with no compensatory capacity at all, becomes advantageous.

• Författare: Johannes Järemo; Jörgen Ripa; Patric Nilsson
• Avdelning/ar: Biologiska institutionen; Evolutionär ekologi; Teoretisk populationsekologi och evolution
• Publiceringsår: 1999
• Språk: Engelska
• Sidor: 361-366
• Publikation/Tidskrift/Serie: Ecology Letters
• Volym: 2
• Issue: 6
• Länkar: http://dx.doi.org/10.1046/j.1461-0248.1999.00095.x
• Dokumenttyp: Artikel i tidskrift
• Förlag: Wiley-Blackwell
• Ämne: Evolutionary Biology; Ecology
• Nyckelord: Bet-hedging; Bud dormancy; Compensation; Damage; Flowering time; Herbivory; Predictability
• Status: Published
• Forskningsgrupp: Theoretical Population Ecology and Evolution Group
• ISBN/ISSN/Övrigt: ISSN: 1461-023X