1. Which selection pressures of alpine habitats may explain the abundance of vegetative growth in alpine plants?
   Short, cold summers, long snow cover, desiccating winds and low fertility snow making the establishment from seeds difficult.
    
2. When would you expect a low genetic diversity in a long-lived clonal plant species?
   Only when sexual reproduction has been completely abandoned or is extremely rare.
    
3. Name at least three of the possibilities by which a plant is able to reproduce vegetatively?
   Rhizomes (below-ground creeping stems), stolons and runners (above-ground creeping stems), tubers (thickened rhizomes, i.e. storage organs), bulbs (large uderground buds), shoots derived from root buds.
    
4. What is the difference between a "phalanx" and a "guerrilla" growth form in a clonal plant?
   When the distance between ramets is short, a "phalanx" growth form, when the distance is large, a "guerrilla" growth form is realized.
    
5. There are many advantages of clonal growth in plants? What is the benefit of clonal integration?
   Resources can be transported among the interconnected shoot system, young offsprings can be supported by the mother shoot.
    
6. What kind of clonal growth form and strategy would you expect in an extremely hostile high mountain environment?
   Cushion plants with a very efficient use of scarce nutrients, slow growth and a high degree of nutrient resorption from senescing plant parts.
    
7. In what kind of habitat would you expect an expansive clonal strategy with intensive lateral spread of clones?
   In open but not necessarily resource poor alpine habitats, typically plants on screes, or graminoids of early successional habitats.
    
8. What kind of resources are mainly transported basypetally, which one acropetally in physiological integrated clonal plant?
   Carbon is transported basypetally, nutrients (e.g. nitrogen) acropetally.
    
9. Why would you not expect a complete abandonment of seed production in a clonal plant, even when population growth rate is nearly exclusively based on vegetative reproduction?
   Because seeds are necessary for far-distance dispersal and the colonization of new sites.
    
10. Why would you expect clonal growth in pioneer species of alpine habitats?
    Because establishment from seeds is restricted to "safe sites" and large parts of bare soil can only be colonized by ramets supported from the mother plant.
     

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29 August 2011
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