caa a22 4500 477109497 CHVBK 20180405111604.0 cr unu---uuuuu 170330e19960601xx s 000 0 eng 10.1007/BF00010463 doi (NATIONALLICENCE)springer-10.1007/BF00010463 Inherent allocation patterns and potential growth rates of herbaceous climbing plants [Elektronische Daten] [Koen den Dubbelden, René Verburg] We tested the hypothesis that herbaceous climbing plants, unlike non-climbing herbs, maximize height growth and leaf area, with minimal expenditure in support structures. The enhanced investment in leaf area was expected to result in high relative growth rates in terms of biomass increment. Four leguminous herbaceous climbers from nutrient-poor sites and four non-leguminous herbaceous climbers from nutrient-rich sites, were compared with non-climbing, self-supporting leguminous and non-leguminous herbaceous species from similar habitats. Plants were grown in hydroponic cultures in controlled environment chambers. All climbers had inherently taller shoots than self-supporting plants when compared at an equal amount of total plant dry weight, due to longer stems per unit of support biomass. In contrast to the hypothesis, the relative growth rates of all climbers were relatively low compared to the range found for self-supporting species. The biomass allocation patterns of the non-leguminous climbers were similar to those of the self-supporting species. Leguminous climbers allocated more biomass to support tissue and less biomass to leaves than non-climbers. As a result, height growth was even more emphasized in leguminous climbers than in non-leguminous climbers. Climbing legumes had high rates of net carbon gain, which partly compensated the lower relative leaf weight. We conclude that leguminous herbaceous climbers maximize height growth by a large investment in support biomass, enabling them to keep a large proportion of their leaves in the better illuminated environment at the top of the vegetation canopy. Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1996 biomass allocation nationallicence climbing plants nationallicence growth rate nationallicence shoot height nationallicence den Dubbelden Koen Department of Plant Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Utrecht University, P.O. Box 800.84, NL-3508 TB, Utrecht, The Netherlands aut Verburg René Department of Plant Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Utrecht University, P.O. Box 800.84, NL-3508 TB, Utrecht, The Netherlands aut Plant and Soil Kluwer Academic Publishers; gopher://gopher:wkap.nl 184/2(1996-06-01), 341-347 0032-079X 184:2<341 1996 184 11104 https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00010463 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI 1 research-article jats NATIONALLICENCE 856 40 https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00010463 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- den Dubbelden Koen Department of Plant Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Utrecht University, P.O. Box 800.84, NL-3508 TB, Utrecht, The Netherlands aut NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Verburg René Department of Plant Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Utrecht University, P.O. Box 800.84, NL-3508 TB, Utrecht, The Netherlands aut NATIONALLICENCE 773 0- Plant and Soil Kluwer Academic Publishers; gopher://gopher:wkap.nl/ 184/2(1996-06-01), 341-347 0032-079X 184:2<341 1996 184 11104 Metadata rights reserved Springer special CC-BY-NC licence nationallicence BK010053 XK010053 XK010000 NATIONALLICENCE NATIONALLICENCE NL-springer