A review of adaptive strategies of clonal plants to interspecific competition
克隆植物对种间竞争的适应策略

Clonal plants have many advantages over non-clonal plants, such as longevity, spatial mobility and two modes of reproduction. Therefore, clonal plants are dominant or constructive species in many natural ecosystems. We review the adaptive strategies of clonal plants to interspecific competition and elaborate the differences of competitive ability. It accounts for the responses to interspecific competition from those aspects, including modular morphology, clonal architecture, reproductive strategy and the relationship between physiological integration and interspecific competition. Those factors lead to different results, such as diversities of experimental materials, conditions of habitat, design of experiments and dynamic spatial changes of morphology and physiology of clonal plants. Key issues that need research are proposed, including clonal plants and interspecific competition under global change and its molecular ecological mechanism.