XVI International Botanical Congess

Diseases have been shown to impact growth characteristics and population structure in many unitary plant species but the effects of diseases on clonal plant species have not been well studied. A greenhouse study was conducted on the clonal grass Glyceria striata and its systemic, fungal pathogen Epichloë glyceriae to determine whether pathogen infection affects clonal growth. We found that: 1) infected plants were more clonal and had fewer tillers in the central clump than uninfected plants, and 2) total biomass was similar but partitioned differently, with infected plants having more stolon biomass and uninfected plants having more central clump biomass. Our next objective is to determine whether pathogen infection directly causes increased host clonal growth or if genotypes with greater clonal growth have a higher chance of becoming infected.