Plastic relationships between reproductive and vegetative mass in Solidago altissima

Abstract

Analyzed the relationship between shoot vegetative (v) and reproductive (r) mass in five experiments on Solidago altissima from an invading population in Switzerland. There was large environmentally-induced and genetic variation in r and v. A large amount of variation in r could be explained by variation in v, using the simple linear model. There was a minimum size for sexual reproduction, and above this size, shoots devoted a relatively constant proportion (c 1/3 of their biomass to reproductive structures. There was significant genetic variation for both the minimum size and the slope of the r-v relationship, but there was no evidence for an hypothesized trade-offs between minimum size and slope. There was significant genotype-environment interaction for the slope of the r-v relationship. -from Authors