Research methods in ecology

by Frederic E. Clements

(d) Resilience, tonoboles. In some plants, especially composites, labiates, and borages, the achenes or nutlets are so placed in the persistent calyx or involucre that the latter serves as a sort of mortar for projection, when the stem of the plant is bent to one side by any force, such as the wind or an animal. It will be noticed that two separate agents are actually concerned in dissemination of this sort.

Frequently, two or more agents will act upon the same disseminule, usually in succession. The possibility of such combinations in nature is large, but actual cases seem to be infrequent, except where the activities of man enter into the question. Some parts, moreover, such as awned inflorescences, are carried almost equally well by wind or animals, and may often be disseminated by the cooperation of these two agents. The wind also often blows seeds and fruits into streams by which they are carried away, but here again, parts adapted to wind-dissemination are injured as a rule by immersion in water, and the number of plants capable of being scattered by the successive action of wind and water is small.

In the present state of our knowledge of migration, it is impossible to establish any definite correspondence between dissemination-contrivance, agent, and habitat. As a general rule, plants growing in or near the water, in so far as they are modified for this purpose at all, are adapted to water-carriage. Species which grow in exposed grassy or barren habitats are for the most part anemochores, while those that are found in the shelter of forests and thickets are usually zoochorous, though the taller trees and shrubs, being exposed to the upper air currents, are generally wind-distributed. There is then a fair degree of correspondence, inasmuch as most hydrophytes are hydrochorous, most hylophytes, zoochorous, and the majority of poophytes and xerophytes, anemochorous. Definite conclusions can be reached, however, only by the statistical study of representative formations.

With respect to their activity, agents may be distinguished as constant, as in the case of currents, streams, winds, slope, growth, and propulsion, or intermittent, animals and man. In the former, the direction is more or less determinate, and migration takes place year by year, i. e., it is continuous, while in the latter dissemination is largely an accidental affair, indeterminate in direction, and recurring only at indefinite intervals. The effective conversion of migration into invasion is greatest when the movement is continuous, and least when it is discontinuous, since, in the latter, species are usually carried not only out of their particular habitat but even far beyond their geographical area, and the migration, instead of being an annual one with the possibility of gradual adjustment, may not recur for several years, or may, indeed, never take place again. The rapidity of migration is greatest in the case of intermittent agents, while the distance of migration is variable, being great chiefly in the case of man, ocean currents, and wind, and slight when the movement is due to slope, growth, or propulsion. Disregarding the great distances over which artificial transport may operate, seeds may be carried half way across the continent in a week by strong-flying birds, while the possibilities of migration by growth or expulsion are limited to a few inches, or at most to a few feet per year. This slowness, however, is more than counterbalanced by the enormously greater number of disseminules, and their much greater chance of becoming established.

268. The direction of migration is determinate, except in the case of those distributive agents which act constantly in the same direction. The general tendency is, of course, forward, the lines of movement radiating in all directions from the parent area. This is well illustrated by the operation of winds which blow from any quarter. In the case of the constant winds, migration takes a more or less definite direction, the latter being determined to a large degree by the fruiting period of any particular species. In this connection, it must be kept clearly in mind that the position of new areas with reference to the original home of a species does not necessarily indicate the direction of migration, as the disseminules may have been carried to numerous other places in which ecesis was impossible. The local distribution of zoochorous species is of necessity indeterminate, though distant migration follows the pathways of migratory birds and animals. In so far as dissemination by man takes place along great commercial routes, or along highways, it is determinate. In ponds, lakes, and other bodies of standing water, migration may occur in all directions, but in ocean currents, streams, etc., the movement is determinate, except in the case of motile species. The dissemination of plants by slopes, glaciers, etc., is local and definite, while propulsion is in the highest degree indeterminate. Migration by growth is equally indefinite, with the exception that hydrotropism and chemotropism result in a radiate movement away from the mass, while propulsion throws seeds indifferently into or away from the species-mass. From the above it will be seen that distant migration may take place by means of water, wind, animals or man, and, since all these agents act in a more or less definite direction over great distances, that it will be in some degree determinate. On the other hand, local migration will as regularly be indeterminate, except in the case of streams and slopes. The direction of migration, then, is controlled by these distributive agents, and the limit of migration is determined by the intensity and duration of the agent, as well as by the character of the space through which the latter operates.

ECESIS

269. Concept. By the term ecesis is designated the series of phenomena exhibited by an invading disseminule from the time it enters a new formation until it becomes thoroughly established there. In a word, ecesis is the adjustment of a plant to a new habitat. It comprises the whole process covered more or less incompletely by acclimatization, naturalization, accommodation, etc. It is the decisive factor in invasion, inasmuch as migration is entirely ineffective without it, and is of great value in indicating the presence and direction of migration in a great number of species where the disseminule is too minute to be detected or too little specialized to be recognizable.

The relation of migration to ecesis is a most intimate one: the latter depends in a large measure upon the time, direction, rapidity, distance, and amount of migration. In addition, there is an essential alternation between the two, inasmuch as migration is followed by ecesis, and the latter then establishes a new center from which further migration is possible, and so on. The time of year in which fruits mature and distributive agents act has a marked influence upon the establishment of a species. Disseminules designed to pass through a resting period are often brought into conditions where they germinate at once, and in which they perish because of unfavorable physical factors, or because competing species are too far advanced. On the other hand, spores and propagules designed for immediate germination may be scattered abroad at a time when conditions make growth impossible. The direction of movement is decisive in that the seed or spore is carried into a habitat sufficiently like that of the parent to secure establishment, or into one so dissimilar that germination is impossible, or at least is not followed by growth and reproduction. The rapidity and distance of migration have little influence, except upon the less resistant disseminules, conidia, gemmae, etc. Finally, the amount of migration, i. e., the number of migrants, is of the very greatest importance, affecting directly the chances that vigorous disseminules will be carried into places where ecesis is possible.

Normally, ecesis consists of three essential processes, germination, growth, and reproduction. This is the rule among terrestrial plants, in which migration regularly takes place by means of a resting part. In free aquatic forms, however, the growing plant or part is usually disseminated, and ecesis consists merely in being able to continue growth and to insure reproduction. Here establishment is practically certain, on account of the slight differences in aquatic habitats, excepting of course the extremes, fresh water and salt water. The ease indeed with which migration and ecesis are effected in the water often makes it impossible to speak properly of invasion in this connection, since aquatics are to such a large extent cosmopolitan. In dissemination by offshoots, the conditions are somewhat similar. Here, also, ecesis comprises the sequence of growth and reproduction, and invasion, in the sense of passing from one habitat to another, is of rare occurrence, as the offshoot grows regularly under the same conditions as the parent plant. The adjustment of growing plants and parts is so slight, and their establishment so certain on account of their inability to migrate into very remote or different habitats, that they may be ignored in the following discussion.

In accordance with the above, it would be possible to distinguish three groups of terrestrial plants: (1) those migrants which germinate and disappear, (2) those which germinate and grow but never reproduce, (3) those which reproduce, either by propagation or generation, or both. Such a classification has little value, however, since the same species may behave in all three fashions, depending upon the habitat to which it has migrated, and since invasion does not occur unless the plant actually takes possession, i. e., reproduces. From the latter statement, it follows that invasion occurs only when a species migrates to a new place, in which it germinates, matures, and reproduces. Maintenance by annual invasion simply, in which the plants of each year disappear completely, can not then be regarded as invasion proper. On the other hand, though such instances are rare, it is not necessary that the invaders produce fruit, provided they are able to maintain themselves, or to increase by propagation. Furthermore, if a plant germinate, grow, and reproduce, it is relatively immaterial whether it persist for a few years or for many, since, as we shall see under Succession, the plants of one invasion are displaced by those of the next, the interval between invasions increasing with the stabilization.