Data on how Lepidium draba responds to damage of clones

A greenhouse experiment was conducted to test the ability of the invasive clonal plant, Lepidium draba, to cope with damage to local and different ramets. The experiment was arranged in a fully factorial split-pot design that was blocked by bench position and provenance population of the plant. Plants were grown in 'split pots', where two adjoining pots were glued together with a small opening for a lateral root to pass through. A plant with a long lateral root was placed such that one ramet was in one pot, and a connected ramet was in the adjoining pot. One ramet was randomly assigned as the 'local' ramet and the other was assigned as the 'neighbor' ramet. Three treatments were applied in a fully factorial manner: (1) connection of lateral root (connected / not connected), (2) damage to local ramet by a generalist herbivore Trichoplusia ni (damaged / undamaged); (3) damage to the local ramet by a specialist herbivore Pieris rapae (damaged / undamaged). Measured responses were the amount of foliar damage to plants, the relative growth rate of a newly applied (bioassay) herbivore (T. ni), the belowground and aboveground biomass of each ramet, and the ability of the neighboring ramet to regrow following removal of aboveground biomass.