Burial depth distribution of fennel pondweed tubers (Potamogeton pectinatus) in relation to foraging by Bewick's swans Hidding, Bert, Nolet, Bart A., van Eerden, Mennobart R., Guillemain, Matthieu and Klaassen, Marcel 2009, Burial depth distribution of fennel pondweed tubers (Potamogeton pectinatus) in relation to foraging by Bewick's swans, Aquatic botany, vol. 90, no. 4, pp. 321-327, doi: 10.1016/j.aquabot.2008.12.001. Attached Files Name Description MIMEType Size Downloads Title Burial depth distribution of fennel pondweed tubers (Potamogeton pectinatus) in relation to foraging by Bewick's swans Formatted title Burial depth distribution of fennel pondweed tubers (Potamogeton pectinatus) in relation to foraging by Bewick's swans Author(s) Hidding, Bert Nolet, Bart A. van Eerden, Mennobart R. Guillemain, Matthieu Klaassen, Marcel orcid.org/0000-0003-3907-9599 Journal name Aquatic botany Volume number 90 Issue number 4 Start page 321 End page 327 Total pages 7 Publisher Elsevier Place of publication Amsterdam, The Netherlands Publication date 2009-05 ISSN 0304-3770 Keyword(s) herbivore avoidance inducible defence microevolution tuber depth distribution trade-off stuckenia pectinata Summary Deep burial in the sediment of tubers of fennel pondweed (Potamogeton pectinatus) has been explained in terms of avoidance by escape against consumption by Bewick's swans (Cygnus columbianus bewickii) in autumn. We therefore expected changes in foraging pressure to ultimately result in a change in the tuber distribution across sediment depth. A trade-off underlies this idea: deep tubers are less accessible to swans but must be larger to meet the higher energy demands of sprouting in spring. To test this prediction, we compared tuber burial depth over a gradient of foraging pressure both across space and across time. Tuber samples were obtained after aboveground plant senescence but before arrival of Bewick's swans. First, we compared the current tuber bank depth profile in a shallow lake with high foraging pressure, the Lauwersmeer, with that in two wetlands with moderate and low foraging pressure. Second, we compared the current tuber burial in the Lauwersmeer with that in the early 1980s when exploitation by swans had just started there. In accordance with our hypothesis, we found significantly deeper burial of tubers under high consumption risk compared to low consumption risk, both when comparing sites and comparing time periods. Since tubers in effect only survive to the next spring, the observed differences in burial depth among sites and over time cannot be a direct result of tuber losses due to consumption by swans. Rather, these observations suggest adaptive responses in tuber burial related to foraging pressure from Bewick's swans in the recent past. We thus propose that fennel pondweed exhibits flexible avoidance by escape, of a kind rarely described for plants, where both phenotypic plasticity and genotype sorting may contribute to the observed differences in tuber burial. Language eng DOI 10.1016/j.aquabot.2008.12.001 Field of Research 060202 Community Ecology (excl Invasive Species Ecology) Socio Economic Objective 970106 Expanding Knowledge in the Biological Sciences HERDC Research category C1.1 Refereed article in a scholarly journal Copyright notice ©2008, Elsevier B.V. Persistent URL http://hdl.handle.net/10536/DRO/DU:30035087 Document type: Journal Article Collections: School of Life and Environmental Sciences Centre for Integrative Ecology Related Links Link Description Connect to published version (restricted access) Go to link with your DU access privileges     Unless expressly stated otherwise, the copyright for items in DRO is owned by the author, with all rights reserved. Versions Version Filter Type Mon, 30 May 2011, 10:59:24 EST Thu, 21 Jul 2011, 11:08:53 EST Thu, 21 Jul 2011, 11:09:24 EST Thu, 21 Jul 2011, 11:11:16 EST Thu, 21 Jul 2011, 11:18:01 EST Thu, 11 Dec 2014, 17:06:02 EST Filtered Full Citation counts:   Cited 5 times in TR Web of Science Cited 6 times in Scopus Search Google Scholar Access Statistics: 354 Abstract Views, 1 File Downloads  -  Detailed Statistics Created: Mon, 30 May 2011, 10:59:24 EST

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