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When sex is not enough: ecological correlates of resprouting capacity in congeneric tropical forest shrubs

  • Population ecology - Original Paper
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Abstract

In moist tropical forests resprouting may be an important component of life history, contributing to asexual reproduction through the clonal spread of individuals derived from shoot fragments. However, in contrast to other ecosystems where resprouting is common, the ecological correlates of resprouting capacity in tropical forests remain largely unexplored. In this study we characterized shade tolerance, resprouting capacity and sexual reproductive success of eight co-occurring Piper species from lowland forests of Panama. In field experiments we found that shade-tolerant Piper species had a higher capacity to regenerate from excised or pinned stem fragments than light-demanding species in both gap and understory light conditions. In contrast, shade-tolerant species had lower recruitment probabilities from seeds, as a consequence of lower initial seed viability, and lower seedling emergence rates. All Piper species needed gap conditions for successful seedling establishment. Of 8,000 seeds sown in the understory only 0.2% emerged. In gaps, seed germination of light-demanding species was between 10 and 50%, whereas for shade-tolerant species it was 0.5–9.8%. We propose that the capacity to reproduce asexually from resprouts could be adaptive for shade-tolerant species that are constantly exposed to damage from falling litter in the understory. Resprouting may allow Piper populations to persist and spread despite the high rate of pre-dispersal seed predation and low seed emergence rates. Across Piper species, we detected a trade-off between resprouting capacity and the annual viable seed production per plant but not with annual seed mass produced per plant. This suggests that species differences in sexual reproductive success may not necessarily result from differential resource allocation. Instead we suggest that low sexual reproductive success in the understory may in part reflect reduced genetic diversity in populations undergoing clonal growth, resulting in self-fertilization and in-breeding depression.

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Acknowledgements

We thank J. Wright, and C. Augspurger for their advice, suggestions and early comments in this manuscript, and A. Morris, E. Sanchez, B. Wolf, D. Kikuchi and J. Sousa for help with fieldwork. Financial support for this work came from a Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute short-term and a pre-doctoral fellowship, a SENACYT-IFARHU doctoral fellowship and from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The experiments comply with the current laws of Panama.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Apartado 0843-03092 Balboa, Ancon, Panama

    Eloisa Lasso, Bettina M. J. Engelbrecht & James W. Dalling

  2. Department of Plant Biology, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, IL, 61801, USA

    Eloisa Lasso & James W. Dalling

  3. Biology Department, San Francisco State University, San Francisco, CA, 94132, USA

    Bettina M. J. Engelbrecht

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  1. Eloisa Lasso
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  2. Bettina M. J. Engelbrecht
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Correspondence to Eloisa Lasso.

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Communicated by Peter Clarke.

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Lasso, E., Engelbrecht, B.M.J. & Dalling, J.W. When sex is not enough: ecological correlates of resprouting capacity in congeneric tropical forest shrubs. Oecologia 161, 43–56 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-009-1353-6

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