How Neighbor Canopy Architecture Affects Target Plant Performance

作者：David C. Tremmel, F. A. Bazzaz · 发表于：Ecology · 年份：1993 · DOI：10.2307/1940856 · 被引用次数：111 · 研究领域：Ecology and Vegetation Dynamics Studies、Plant and animal studies、Plant Water Relations and Carbon Dynamics

Plant competition is a process that occurs through the negative effects that individual plants have on resource availability to neighboring individuals. Therefore competition experiments need to examine how different species change resource availability to their neighbors, and how different species respond to these changes–allocationally, architecturally, and physiologically–through time. In a greenhouse study we used a model system of annuals to examine how canopies of species having differing morphologies differed in their architectures and light—interception abilities, and how different species performed when grown in these canopies. Abutilon theophrasti, Datura stramonium, and Polygonum pensylvanicum were grown as "targets," surrounded by neighbors of a single species. Neighbors could be any one of the target species or Setaria faberii. Plants were grown in pots, with one target plant and four neighbor plants. Detailed measurements of neighbor canopy structure and target plant canopy architecture were made at five harvests. Species with different morphologies showed large differences in canopy structure, particularly when grass and forb specie were compared. Setaria, a grass, had a more open canopy than the other species (all forbs), and was a consistently weak competitor. Overall, however, the relative effects of different neighbors on target biomass varied with target species. Target biomass was poorly correlated with neighbor biomass and leaf area, but was highly corre...