BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Senescence is the process of losing fitness when growing old, and is shaped by the trade-off between maintenance and reproduction that makes reproduction more unsure and maintenance more costly with age. In repeatedly reproducing plants, reductions in growth and fertility are signs of senescence. Disturbance, however, provides an opportunity to reset the ageing clock and consequently potentially ameliorate senescence. METHODS: To test the effects of disturbance on traits closely related to fitness and thus to senescence, a long-term garden experiment was established with two short-lived perennial congeners,Barbarea vulgaris and Barbarea stricta, that differ in their ability to resprout after injury. In the experiment, five damage treatments were applied to plants in four different phenophases. KEY RESULTS: It was found that damage to the plant body significantly prolonged life span in B. vulgaris but decreased whole-life seed production in both species. High concentration of seed production in one growing season characterized short life spans. Both more severe damage and a more advanced phenological phase at the time of damage caused reproduction to be spread over more than one growing season and equalized per-season seed production. In terms of seed quality, average weight of a single seed decreased and seed germination rate increased with age regardless of damage. CONCLUSIONS: Although disturbance is able to reset the ageing clock of plants, it is so harmful to plant fitness that resprouting serves, at best, only to alleviate slightly the signs of senescence. Thus, in terms of whole-life seed production, injured plants were not more successful than uninjured ones in the two studied species. Indeed, in these species, injury only slightly postponed or decelerated senescence and did not cause effective rejuvenation.

Institute of Botany The Czech Academy of Sciences Dukelská 135 379 82 Třeboň Czech Republic

Institute of Botany The Czech Academy of Sciences Zámek 1 252 43 Průhonice Czech Republic

University of South Bohemia Faculty of Science Branišovská 1760 370 05 České Budějovice Czech Republic and

Zobrazit více v PubMed

Agrawal AA. 2000. Overcompensation of plants in response to herbivory and the by-product benefits of mutualism. Trends in Plant Science 5: 309–313. PubMed

Araki K, Shimatani K, Nishizawa M, Yoshizane T, Ohara M. 2010. Growth and survival patterns of Cardiocrinum cordatum var. glehnii (Liliaceae) based on a 13-year monitoring study: life history characteristics of a monocarpic perennial herb. Botany 88: 745–752.

Banta JA, Stevens MHH, Pigliucci M. 2010. A comprehensive test of the ‘limiting resources’ framework applied to plant tolerance to apical meristem damage. Oikos 119: 359–369.

Barks PM, Laird RA. 2015. Senescence in duckweed: age-related declines in survival, reproduction and offspring quality. Functional Ecology 29: 540–548.

Bartušková A, Klimešová J. 2010. Reiteration in the short lived root-sprouting herb Rorippa palustris: does the origin of buds matter? Botany 88: 630–638.

Baskin JM, Baskin CC. 1989. Physiology of dormancy and germination in relation to seed bank ecology In: Leck MA, Parker VT, Simpson RT, eds. Ecology of soil seed bank. London: Academic Press, 53–66.

Baudisch A, Salguero-Gómez R, Jones OR, et al. 2013. The pace and shape of senescence in angiosperms. Journal of Ecology 101: 596–606.

Bretz F, Hothorn ET, Westfall P. 2011. Multiple comparisons using R. Boca Raton: CRC Press.

Brutovská E, Sámelová A, Dušička J, Mičieta K. 2013. Ageing of trees: application of general ageing theories. Ageing Research Reviews 12: 855–865. PubMed

Davies PJ, Gan S. 2012. Towards an integrated view of monocarpic plant senescence. Russian Journal of Plant Physiology 59: 467–478.

Davison R, Boggs CL, Baudisch A. 2014. Resource allocation as a driver of senescence: life history tradeoffs produce age patterns of mortality. Journal of Theoretical Biology 360: 251–262. PubMed

Dvořák F. 1992. 14. Barbarea R. Br In: Hejný S, Slavík B, eds. Flora of the Czech Republic (Vol. 3). Praha: Academia, 72–76.

Garcia MB, Dahlgren JP, Ehrlen J. 2011. No evidence of senescence in a 300-year-old mountain herb. Journal of Ecology 99: 1424–1430.

Grime JP. 2001. Plant strategies, vegetation processes and ecosystem properties. Chichester: Wiley.

Harper JL. 1977. Population biology of plants. London: Academic Press.

Huhta AP, Hellstrom K, Rautio P, Tuomi J. 2003. Grazing tolerance of Gentianella amarella and other monocarpic herbs: why is tolerance highest at low damage levels? Plant Ecology 166: 49–61.

Kirkwood TBL. 1977. Evolution of ageing. Nature 270: 301–304. PubMed

Klimešová J, Martínková J. 2004. Intermediate growth forms as a model for the study of plant clonality functioning: an example with root sprouters. Evolutionary Ecology 18: 669–681.

Klimešová J, Sosnová M, Martínková J. 2007. Life-history variation in the short-lived herb Rorippa palustris: effect of germination date and injury timing. Plant Ecology 189: 237–246.

Klimešová J, Nobis MP, Herben T. 2014. Senescence, ageing and death of the whole plant: morphological prerequisites and constraints of plant immortality. New Phytologist 206: 147–18. PubMed

Lacey PE, Roach DA, Herr D, Kincaid S, Perrott R. 2003. Multigenerational effects of flowering and fruiting phenology in Plantago lanceolata. Ecology 84: 2462–2475.

Lanner RM, Connor KF. 2001. Does bristlecone pine senesce? Experimental Gerontology 36: 675–685. PubMed

Latzel V, Janeček Š, Hájek T, Klimešová J. 2014. Biomass and stored carbohydrate compensation after above-ground biomass removal in a perennial herb: does environmental productivity play a role? Folia Geobotanica 49: 17–29.

Lehtilä K, Strauss SY. 1999. Effects of foliar herbivory on male and female reproductive traits of wild radish, Raphanus raphanistrum. Ecology 80: 116–124.

MacDonald MA, Cavers PB. 1991. The biology of Canadian weeds. 97. Barbarea vulgaris R. Br. Canadian Journal of Plant Science 71: 149–166.

Martínková J, Klimešová J, Mihulka S. 2008. Compensation of seed production after severe injury in the short-lived herb Barbarea vulgaris. Basic and Applied Ecology 1: 44–54.

Martínková J, Klimešová J, Doležal J, Kolář F. 2015. Root sprouting in Knautia arvensis (Dipsacaceae): effects of polyploidy, soil origin and nutrient availability. Plant Ecology 216: 901–911.

Mencuccini M, Onate M, Penuelas J, Rico L, Munné-Bosch S. 2014. No signs of meristem senescence in old Scots pine. Journal of Ecology 102: 555–565.

Morales M, Munné-Bosch S. 2015. Secret of long life lies underground. New Phytologist 205: 463–467. PubMed

Müller M, Siles L, Cela J, Munné-Bosch S. 2014. Perennially young: seed production and quality in controlled and natural populations of Cistus albidus reveal compensatory mechanisms that prevent senescence in terms of seed yield and viability. Journal of Experimental Botany 65: 287–297. PubMed PMC

Munné-Bosh S. 2008. Do perennials really senesce? Trends in Plant Science 13: 216–220. PubMed

Munné-Bosch S. 2014. Perennial roots to immortality. Plant Physiology 166: 720–725. PubMed PMC

Munné-Bosch S. 2015. Senescence: is it universal or not? Trends in Plant Science 20: 713–720. PubMed

Pinheiro JC, Bates DM. 2000. Mixed-effect models in S and S-PLUS. New York: Springer.

Porter R, Durrell M, Romm H. 1947. The use of 2, 3, 5-triphenyl-tetrazoliumchloride as a measure of seed germinability. Plant Physiology 22: 149–159. PubMed PMC

Poorter H, Buhler J, van Dusschoten D, Climent J, Postma JA. 2012. Pot size matters: a meta-analysis of the effects of rooting volume on plant growth. Functional Plant Biology 39: 839–850. PubMed

R Core Team. 2013. R: A language and environment for statistical computing. Vienna: R Foundation for Statistical Computing, http://www.r-project.org

Salguero-Gómez R, Casper BB. 2010. Keeping plant shrinkage in geographic loop. Journal of Ecology 98: 312–323.

Salguero-Gómez R., Shefferson RP, Hutchings MJ. 2013. Plants do not count… or do they? New perspectives on the universality of senescence. Journal of Ecology 101: 545–554. PubMed PMC

Sánchez AM, Albert MJ, Rodríguez M, Escudero A. 2012. Extended flowering in a Mediterranean shrub: seasonal variability in seed quality and quantity. Flora 207: 821–827.

Silvertown J, Franco M, Perez-Ishiwara R. 2001. Evolution of senescence in iteroparous perennial plants. Evolutionary Ecology Research 3: 393–412.

Sklensky DE, Davies PJ. 2011. Resource partitioning to male and female flowers of Spinacia oleracea L. in relation to whole-plant monocarpic senescence. Journal of Experimental Botany 62: 4323–4336. PubMed PMC

Sosnová M., Klimešová J. 2009. Life-history variation in the short-lived herb Rorippa palustris: the role of carbon storage. Acta Oecologica 35: 691–697.

Sosnová M, Klimešová J. 2013. The effects of flooding and injury on vegetative regeneration from roots: a case study with Rorippa palustris. Plant Ecology 214: 999–1006.

Sosnová M, Herben T, Martínková J, Bartušková A, Klimešová J. 2014. To resprout or not to resprout? Modelling population dynamics of a root-sprouting monocarpic plant under various disturbance regimes. Plant Ecology 215: 1245–1254.

Sparrow AD, Bellingham PJ. 2001. More to resprouting than fire. Oikos 94: 195–197.

Taylorson RB. 1970. Changes in dormancy and viability of weed seeds in soils. Weed Science 18: 265–269.

Therneau TM, Grambsch PM. 2000. Modelling survival data: extending the Cox model. New York: Springer.

Thomas H. 2013. Senescence, ageing and death of the whole plant. New Phytologist 197: 696–711. PubMed

Thomas H, Ougham HJ, Wagstaff C, Stead AD. 2003. Defining senescence and death. Journal of Experimental Botany 54: 1127–1132. PubMed

Van Dijk H. 2009. Ageing effects in an iteroparous plant species with a variable lifespan. Annals of Botany 104: 115–124. PubMed PMC

Vesk PA, Westoby M. 2004. Sprouting ability across diverse disturbances and vegetation types worldwide. Journal of Ecology 92: 310–320.

Switching from monocarpic to polycarpic perennial life histories in a cold climate: a commentary on 'Physiological costs of clonal growth'

Enforced Clonality Confers a Fitness Advantage