Clonal mobility and its implications for spatio-temporal patterns of plant communities: what do we need to know next?
2010
Abstract
Patterns of clonal growth and their controls on the level of individuals have been studied thoroughly, but little is known about the actual clonal mobility of plant individuals in vegetation and about its role in generating vegetation patterns and influencing species coexistence. Current evidence shows that communities are composed of spatially nonmobile ‘matrix-forming species’ and mobile ‘inter-matrix’ species, while local between-species variation in clonal mobility has been shown to be positively correlated to small-scale richness.