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Bulletin of Botanical Research ›› 2019, Vol. 39 ›› Issue (6): 835-845.doi: 10.7525/j.issn.1673-5102.2019.06.005

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Individual Traits and Their Interrelationships of Gametophyte and Sporophyte of a Moss Pogonatum inflexum in the Dalongshan National Forest Park in Anhui Province

QIU Dong1, ZHANG Jing2, WU Nan2,3, TAO Ye1   

  1. 1. The Province Key Laboratory of the Biodiversity Study and Ecology Conservation in Southwest Anhui, College of Life Sciences, Anqing Normal University, Anqing 246133;
    2. Key Laboratory of Biogeography and Bioresource in Arid Land, Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Urumqi 830011;
    3. College of Resources and Environmental Engineering, Ludong University, Yantai 264025
  • Received:2019-01-17 Online:2019-11-05 Published:2019-11-16
  • Supported by:
    Under the ospices of Natural Science Foundation of Anhui Province(1708085MC77);National Natural Science Foundation of China(41771299)

Abstract: Plant functional traits are the comprehensive expression of plants responding and adapting to the changing environments. So far, studies on individual functional traits of bryophytes are still rare. In this study, the female plants of Pogonatum inflexum distributed in the Dalongshan National Forest Park in Anhui Province was chosen as the target, the morphological features and biomass of sporophytes and gametophytes were determined in the period that the sporophytes are mature; and then, the variation characteristics, allometric relationship and covariation(integration) pattern of individual plant traits were analyzed systematically. The results indicated that, the variation coefficient of morphological traits of gametophytes was higher than that of sporophytes, and meanwhile the biomass both of gametophyte and sporophyte showed the highest variation. The height(length) of sporophytes was two times greater than that of gametophytes, while the biomass of the former only accounted 23% of the total aboveground biomass(total sporophyte and gametophyte biomass). The functional traits of sporophytes and gametophytes represented correlations to a certain extent; the allometric relationships with scaling exponent <1.0 were detected mostly between morphological traits(Y-axis) and biomass(X-axis), whereas an isometric relationship(the scaling exponent is 1.135±0.158) was found between biomasses of sporophytes and gametophytes. The biomass allocation ratio of sporophytes decreased with the increasing of gametophyte size, indicating significant negative size-dependent reproductive allocation. The principal component analysis indicated that the main functional traits of sporophytes and gametophytes of P.inflexum represented different covariation directions(i.e., two different trait groups), among them, the sporophyte biomass was the key linkage of the two trait groups. In conclusion, the plant traits at individual level of P.inflexum showed a similar covariation relationship with vascular plants.

Key words: bryophyte, sporophyte, biomass, functional trait, allometry, covariation

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