VARIATION OF FUNCTIONAL CLONAL TRAITS ALONG ELEVATION IN TWO FERN SPECIES

摘要

Phenotypical plasticity is generally considered among adaptive strategies by which plants can cope with environmentalvariation in space and time. Although much is known about plasticity in seed plants in terms of functional clonal traits whilelittle is known about ferns. Variation of functional clonal traits of two ferns Dicranopteris dichotoma and Diplopterygiumglaucum among plots differing in elevation in a subtropical evergreen broad-leaved forest in southern China wasinvestigated. Along with elevation increasing the two fern species showed similar variation pattern of functional clonal traits:stable spacer length, increasing specific spacer length and decreasing spacer weight per ramet and specific spacer weight.The two ferns species had similar variation pattern of ramet performance traits but different variation pattern of rametpopulation properties. These results suggest an evolutionary trade-off between functions of foraging for and storing ofresources in the two ferns, with a functional preference for the foraging in response to environmental change.