A meta-analysis of effects of physiological integration in clonal plants under homogeneous vs. heterogeneous environments

Summary

1. Clonal plants play key roles in maintaining community productivity and stability in many ecosystems. Connected individuals (ramets) of clonal plants can translocate and share e.g. photosynthates, water and nutrients, and such physiological integration may affect performance of clonal plants both in heterogeneous and homogeneous environments. However, we still lack a general understanding of whether or how physiological integration in clonal plants differs across homogeneous vs. heterogeneous environments.

2. We compiled data from 198 peer reviewed scientific studies conducted in 19 countries with 108 clonal plant species from 35 families, and carried out a meta-analysis of effects of physiological integration on 16 traits related to plant growth, morphology, physiology or allocation. Our analyses evaluated these relationships in A) heterogeneous environments where at least one resource essential for plant growth (e.g. light, soil water and mineral nutrients) or non-res...