Life Sciences Commons^™

Demographic Feedback Between Clonal Growth And Fragmentation In An Invasive Seaweed, Jeffrey T. Wright, Andrew R. Davis

Faculty of Science - Papers (Archive)

Many abundant plants, invertebrates, and seaweed are clonal, and this allows the formation of high-density aggregations, foraging, and the placement of modules into new space, and rapid rates of expansion. For these species, population density and rates of expansion are functions of recruitment of asexual modules and post-recruitment vegetative growth and survivorship. In this study, we provide the first experimental test of the relative importance of these two processes in determining the abundance of a clonal seaweed using Caulerpa taxifolia, an invasive green alga that spreads rapidly and reaches very high abundance. We asked two main questions: What is …