PARENT SESSION
Poster Session # 22: Late-Breaking Newsworthy Posters

Friday, August 8 Presentation from 8:30 AM to 10:00 AM. SITCC Exhibit Hall B.

To strive, to seek and not to yield: Testing competitive response strategies of juvenile plants.

CARLYLE, CAMERON^*,1, FRASER, LAUCHLAN¹, ¹ University of Akron, Akron, Ohio, USA

ABSTRACT- One of the most important factors controlling the structure of plant communities is competition. It is likely that juvenile plants experience the greatest degree of competition for light while establishing under a canopy. Our goal is to test for possible competitive response strategies of juvenile wetland plants for light. If there are observable strategies, we are particularly interested in whether invasive plant species share the same strategy type. Thirty-five species of graminoids, herbs, or woody plants (including some invasive species) have been carefully selected to represent a broad range of life history types. These plants are being grown in the laboratory under modified light conditions to test three proposed strategies: (1) escape, (2) foraging and (3) persistence. The escape response is a measure of the plants vertical growth in an attempt to break the canopy layer of surrounding vegetation; this is tested by growing plants without light and measuring the maximum height achieved prior to death. The foraging response is an opportunistic strategy whereby the plant takes advantage of available light patches, and is measured by the plants ability to respond to a change in location of a light source. The persistence response is when a plant stores energy in expectation of light becoming available and is represented by the length of time without light that leads to plant death. Species will then be grouped according to strategy type. Results from these studies will aid in the understanding of colonization and invasion by a species amongst established vegetation.

Key words: plant strategies, competitive response, plant invasives, community ecology