preprints.org > biology > plant sciences > doi: 10.20944/preprints202202.0174.v1

Preprint Review Version 1 Preserved in Portico This version is not peer-reviewed

Version 1 : Received: 10 February 2022 / Approved: 14 February 2022 / Online: 14 February 2022 (11:29:43 CET)

Understanding how plants change their root foraging strategy in the presence of neighbors is of paramount importance for plant ecology and agriculture. The root tragedy of the common (RToC) is a plant behavior predicted by game theory models in which competing plants forage for soil resources inefficiently. The RToC is generally assumed to be induced by non-self root recognition, and researchers consider root overproliferation and reduced fitness with respect to a plant growing solo as the trace left by plants engaging in an RToC in experiments and model results. Herein, I first challenge both notions, and argue that the RToC is a suboptimal phenotypically plastic response of plants that is based in soil resource information exclusively. Second, I discuss how this new perspective carries important implications for the design of experiments investigating the physiological mechanisms underlying observable plant root responses. Finally, I discuss why placing the RToC theory in the context of more general root research is fundamental: The RToC represents a mechanistic foundation for understanding the belowground behavior of plants interacting with neighbors, and a spatially explicit approach to RToC may produce more comprehensive results.

Game theory; Plant behavioral ecology; Plant competition; Plant interaction mechanisms; Root foraging strategies; Root methods

BIOLOGY, Plant Sciences