ORIGINAL RESEARCH
Leaf Morphology and Ecological Stoichiometry
of C, N and P in Dioecious Invasive
Amaranthus palmeri
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Department of Plant Biology and Ecology, College of Life Sciences, Nankai University, No. 94 Weijin Road,
Nankai District, Tianjin, P.R.China 300071
Submission date: 2022-09-05
Final revision date: 2022-10-08
Acceptance date: 2022-10-21
Online publication date: 2022-12-13
Publication date: 2023-01-12
Corresponding author
Fuchen Shi
College of Life Sciences, Nankai University, China
Pol. J. Environ. Stud. 2023;32(1):627-635
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ABSTRACT
Amaranthus palmeri is a dioecious invasive weed, which poses a great threat to agricultural
production and biodiversity protection in China. Although many studies have explored the invasiveness
of invasive alien plant species from the perspective of resource utilization efficiency, surprisingly few
studies have investigated the sex-related traits in invasive alien plant species. In our study, four different
types of A. palmeri were selected to investigated the leaf morphology, allometric growth patterns and
ecological stoichiometry of carbon (C), nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) between male and female,
which typical invaded regions in Jizhou District (JZ), Baodi District (BD), Xiqing District (XQ) and
Jinghai District (JH) in Tianjin. Results demonstrated that the leaf width (LW), leaf length (LL), leaf
area (LA) and specific leaf area (SLA) of the male plant were generally significantly higher than those
of the female plants. Compared with the female plants, the straits of the male plants were closely
sex-related and had an allometric growth relationship. The leaf N content (Nmass) and P content (Pmass)
of A. palmeri were higher than the average of Chinese terrestrial plants, while the leaf carbon-nitrogen
ratio (C/N) and carbon-phosphorus ratio (C/P) of A. palmeri were lower than the average of global
terrestrial plants. It is concluded that A. palmeri may have different ecological response strategies,
which can adapt to the habitats to achieve a successful invasion by optimizing the resource allocation
and utilization efficiency between male and female plants.