Effects of Maternal Nutrient Pulse on Reproduction of Two Colonizing Plantago Species

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Abstract
Plantago major and P. rugelii maternal plants were grown at two background nutrient levels and received nutrient pulses given at different times during their life—span. The influences of these maternal treatments on the reproduction of progeny were examined in four different progeny environments represented by two treatments: with and without competition, and with and without a nutrient pulse. We found that the effects of maternal nutrient pulses on the two species were related to the environments of both parents and progeny. When grown without competition, progeny from parent P. major plants maintained at the low background nutrient level and given a nutrient pulse had a higher spike biomass and a higher proportional allocation to spikes than did progeny from parents that did not receive a nutrient pulse. In contrast, the progeny of parents that were maintained at the high nutrient level showed no response to a nutrient pulse. In P. rugelii the effect of maternal nutrient pulses on the total and leaf biomass of the progeny was related to both maternal background nutrient levels and nutrient pulse treatments to the progeny. For both species, the timing of maternal nutrient pulses had no significant effect on the characters studied. In competition, for P. major, the progeny from parents given a nutrient pulse during fruit maturation consistently produced a greater amount of spike biomass relative to their neighboring plants from parents that did not receive nutrient pulses, regardless of both the maternal background nutrients and progeny pulse treatments. However, for the progeny from parents given a nutrient pulse during the vegetative and flowering stages, their competitive ability relative to their neighbors depended on both the timing of maternal pulse and the progeny pulse treatment. For P. rugelii, the performance (leaf biomass) of the two neighboring progeny depended on maternal background nutrient levels. These results show that maternal nutrient, conditions can influence competitive interactions in the progeny generation. The effects may have ecological and evolutionary implications particularly for initial colonization of infertile sites and for the ability of natural selection to act on phenotypic variation. The strength of these maternal effects depends on both the maternal environment and the progeny environment.

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