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. 2022 Dec 27;12(1):139.
doi: 10.3390/plants12010139.

Response of Cucumis sativus to Neighbors in a Species-Specific Manner

Xiu Zhang  1   2 , Jingfan Yan  1   2 , Fengzhi Wu  1   2
Affiliations

Response of Cucumis sativus to Neighbors in a Species-Specific Manner

Xiu Zhang et al. Plants (Basel). .

Abstract

Plants exhibit various behaviors of growth and allocation that play an important role in plant performance and social interaction as they grow together. However, it is unclear how Cucumis sativus plants respond to different neighbors. Here, we performed 5 neighbor combinations with C. sativus as the focal species. The selected materials of C. sativus responded to neighbors and exhibited different behavior strategies in a species-specific manner. All competition treatments reduced the growth of C. sativus seedlings to a certain extent, but only the Eruca sativa neighbor treatment reached a significant level in total root length and shoot biomass. Compared with growing under solitary conditions, focal plants avoided, tended to and did not change their allocation to their nearby plants. The larger the biomass of their neighbors, the stronger the inhibition of the focal plants. In addition, no significant correlations between growth and allocation variables were found, suggesting that growth and allocation are two important aspects of C. sativus behavioral strategies. Our findings provide reference and support for agricultural production of C. sativus, but further research and practice are still needed.

Keywords: allocation; behavioral strategies; competition; growth; plant interaction.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Phenotypic plasticity responses of roots to different neighbor combinations.
Figure 2
Figure 2
The growth responses of C. sativus to different competition treatments. * indicates a significant difference in (A) plant height, (B) total root length, (C) shoot biomass, and (D) root biomass between competition and solitary treatment (p < 0.05).
Figure 3
Figure 3
The allocation responses of C. sativus to different competition treatments. * indicates a significant difference in (A) root:shoot radio, (B) horizontal asymmetry in root width, (C) horizontal asymmetry in total root length, and (D) horizontal asymmetry in root biomass between competition and solitary treatment (p < 0.05).
Figure 4
Figure 4
Relative interaction index (RII) for focal plant biomass. * indicates a significant difference between competition and solitary treatment (p < 0.05).
Figure 5
Figure 5
Shoot and root biomass of neighbors in the competition treatments. Letters indicate a significant difference between different neighbors (p < 0.05). (A) shoot and (B) root biomass.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Correlation analysis between 8 response variables. * indicates a significant difference (p < 0.05), ** indicates a significant difference (p < 0.01), and *** indicates a significant difference (p < 0.001).
Figure 7
Figure 7
Schematic of heterogeneous nutrient treatments.
Figure 8
Figure 8
Illustration of the experimental rhizobox and design. (A) The structure and size of the rhizobox; (B) neighbor treatment (competition); (C) no neighbor treatment (solitary). Roots grow away from the neighbor in the ‘away’ region and those towards the neighbor in the ‘towards’ region.
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