Plants can plastically respond to light competition in three strategies, comprising vertical growth, which promotes competitive dominance; shade tolerance, which maximises performance under shade; or lateral growth, which offers avoidance of competition. Here, we test the hypothesis that plants can 'choose' between these responses, according to their abilities to competitively overcome their neighbours. We study this hypothesis in the clonal plant Potentilla reptans using an experimental setup that simulates both the height and density of neighbours, thus presenting plants with different light-competition scenarios. Potentilla reptans ramets exhibit the highest vertical growth under simulated short-dense neighbours, highest specific leaf area (leaf area/dry mass) under tall-dense neighbours, and tend to increase total stolon length under tall-sparse neighbours. These responses suggest shifts between 'confrontational' vertical growth, shade tolerance and lateral-avoidance, respectively, and provide evidence that plants adopt one of several alternative plastic responses in a way that optimally corresponds to prevailing light-competition scenarios.

Department of Botany Faculty of Science University of South Bohemia 370 05 České Budějovice Czech Republic

Department of Soil Science Faculty of Natural Science Comenius University in Bratislava Ilkovičova 6 842 15 Mlynska dolina Bratislava Slovak Republic

Plant Ecology Group Institute of Evolution and Ecology University of Tübingen Auf der Morgenstelle 5 72076 Tübingen Germany

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Nat Plants. 2018 Jan;4(1):9. doi: 10.1038/s41477-017-0094-5. PubMed

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