caa a22 4500 477109721 CHVBK 20180405111605.0 cr unu---uuuuu 170330e19960301xx s 000 0 eng 10.1007/BF02257566 doi (NATIONALLICENCE)springer-10.1007/BF02257566 The ecological significance of plasticity in root weight ratio in response to nitrogen: Opinion [Elektronische Daten] [H. Reynolds, C. D'Antonio] We analyzed data on root weight ratio from a range of experimental studies documenting plant allocation changes in response to altered nitrogen availability. Our goal was to determine the degree to which plasticity in allocation between roots and shoots exists and to search for patterns in such plasticity among species. Our survey included 77 studies representing 206 cases and 129 species. As expected, we found that root weight ratio decreased with increased nitrogen availability in the majority of cases examined, and this response was most consistent when plants were grown individually or in intraspecific competition (versus interspecific competition). Surprisingly, however, we found no evidence to support existing hypotheses that fast-growing species adapted to high soil fertilities exhibit the highest levels of morphological plasticity, or that plasticity is positively associated with competitive ability. Rather, we found that average amounts of plasticity in root weight ratio in response to nitrogen availability were similar among species grouped by maximum relative growth rate and habitat fertility. Similar results were obtained for species categorized by life form, life history or root weight ratio itself, and plasticity in root weight ratio also had no consistent relationship with competitive ability. Numerous difficulties are associated with the attempt to search for pattern using independent studies, however our results lead to the conclusion that strong patterns in plasticity of root weight ratio in response to nitrogen availability among species do not exist. We discuss two reasons for this: (1) the costs of plasticity relative to its benefits are lower than previously predicted and (2) plasticity in traits other than root weight ratio is more important to plant foraging ability. Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1996 allocation nationallicence competitive ability nationallicence nitrogen availability nationallicence plasticity nationallicence root weight ratio nationallicence Reynolds H. W.K. Kellogg Biological Station, 3700 East Gull Lake Drive, 49060, Hickory Corners, MI, USA aut D'Antonio C. W.K. Kellogg Biological Station, 3700 East Gull Lake Drive, 49060, Hickory Corners, MI, USA aut Plant and Soil Kluwer Academic Publishers 185/1(1996-03-01), 75-97 0032-079X 185:1<75 1996 185 11104 https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02257566 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI 1 research-article jats NATIONALLICENCE 856 40 https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02257566 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Reynolds H. W.K. Kellogg Biological Station, 3700 East Gull Lake Drive, 49060, Hickory Corners, MI, USA aut NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- D'Antonio C. W.K. Kellogg Biological Station, 3700 East Gull Lake Drive, 49060, Hickory Corners, MI, USA aut NATIONALLICENCE 773 0- Plant and Soil Kluwer Academic Publishers 185/1(1996-03-01), 75-97 0032-079X 185:1<75 1996 185 11104 Metadata rights reserved Springer special CC-BY-NC licence nationallicence BK010053 XK010053 XK010000 NATIONALLICENCE NATIONALLICENCE NL-springer