Kin discrimination causes plastic responses in floral and clonal allocation

In this study, we quantified focal plant floral and clonal responses to kin by manipulating the relatedness of neighbours growing in shared pots in Mimulus guttatus. Specifically, focal plants were either a) selfed, and neighboured by selfed-sibling plants, b) outcrossed and neighboured by outcrossed-sibling plants, or c) outcrossed and neighboured by non-kin plants. For focal individuals in each treatment we measured various floral (e.g. flower number, corolla length, corolla width, date of first flowering), clonal (e.g. stolon number, length, width, and biomass) and vegetative (e.g. leaf size, stem thickness, and rosette biomass) at early (week 4), flowering (week 6), and late-life (week 9) stages.