Is biomass a reliable estimate of plant fitness?
Is biomass a reliable estimate of plant fitness?
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DOI：
10.3732/apps.1600094
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发表时间：
2017-02
影响因子：
3.6
通讯作者：
Ballhorn DJ
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Younginger BS;Sirová D;Cruzan MB;Ballhorn DJ
适合度的测量对于生物学研究至关重要。尽管在受控条件下确定某些生物体的适应性可能相对简单，但在自然界中这通常是一项困难或几乎不可能的任务。植物也不例外。长距离花粉传播的潜力、每个花序发生多次繁殖事件的可能性、多年生植物不同程度的繁殖生长以及无性繁殖都影响了准确的适应性测量。由于这些原因，生物量经常被用作植物适应性的指标。然而，诸如植物大小等间接适应性测量的适用性却很少被评估。这篇综述概述了植物性能、繁殖力和适应性之间的重要关联。在比较同一年龄组的同种动物时，我们证明了生物量作为适应性估计的可靠性。我们回顾了 170 项有关植物健康度的研究，并讨论了健康度评估中常用的指标。我们发现生物量或生长率被频繁使用，并且通常与繁殖力呈正相关，这反过来又表明整体适应性更强。我们的结果支持在许多情况下使用生物量作为适合度的适当替代品，并建议只要有可能，应与生物量或生长率一起报告额外的适合度测量。
The measurement of fitness is critical to biological research. Although the determination of fitness for some organisms may be relatively straightforward under controlled conditions, it is often a difficult or nearly impossible task in nature. Plants are no exception. The potential for long-distance pollen dispersal, likelihood of multiple reproductive events per inflorescence, varying degrees of reproductive growth in perennials, and asexual reproduction all confound accurate fitness measurements. For these reasons, biomass is frequently used as a proxy for plant fitness. However, the suitability of indirect fitness measurements such as plant size is rarely evaluated. This review outlines the important associations between plant performance, fecundity, and fitness. We make a case for the reliability of biomass as an estimate of fitness when comparing conspecifics of the same age class. We reviewed 170 studies on plant fitness and discuss the metrics commonly employed for fitness estimations. We find that biomass or growth rate are frequently used and often positively associated with fecundity, which in turn suggests greater overall fitness. Our results support the utility of biomass as an appropriate surrogate for fitness under many circumstances, and suggest that additional fitness measures should be reported along with biomass or growth rate whenever possible.