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Effects of Cuscuta australis parasitism on the growth, reproduction and defense of Solidago canadensis. 

YANG Bei-fen1,2, DU Le-shan3, LI Jun-min1,2   

  1. (1Zhejiang Province Key Laboratory of Plant Evolutionary Ecology and Conservation, Taizhou 318000, Zhejiang, China; 2Institute of Ecology, Taizhou University, Taizhou 318000, Zhejiang, China; 3College of Nature Reserve, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing 100083, China)
  • Online:2015-11-18 Published:2015-11-18

Abstract: In order to find out how parasitic Cuscuta australis influences the growth and reproduction of Solidago canadensis, the effects of the parasitism of C. australis on the morphological, growth and reproductive traits of S. canadensis were examined and the relationships between the biomass and the contents of the secondary metabolites were analyzed. The results showed that the parasitism significantly reduced the plant height, basal diameter, root length, root diameter, root biomass, stem biomass, leaf biomass, total biomass, number of inflorescences branches, axis length of inflorescence, and number of inflorescence. In particular, plant height, number of inflorescence and the stem biomass of parasitized S. canadensis were only 1/2, 1/5 and 1/8 of nonparasitized plants, respectively. There was no significant difference of plant height, root length, stem biomass and total biomass between plants parasitized with high and low intensities. But the basal diameter, root volume, leaf biomass, root biomass, the number of inflorescences branches, axis length of inflorescence and number of inflorescence of S. canadensis parasitized with high intensity were significantly lower than those of plants parasitized with low intensity. The parasitism of C. australis significantly increased the tannins content in the root and the flavonoids content in the stem of S. canadensis. The biomass of S. canadensis was significantly negatively correlated with the tannin content in the root and the flavonoids content in the stem. These results indicated that the parasitism of C. australis could inhibit the growth of S. canadensis by changing the resources allocation patterns as well as reducing the resources obtained by S. canadensis.