SPATIAL DYNAMICS OF A HIMANTHALIA ELONGATA (FUCALES, PHAEOPHYTA) POPULATION

In dense monospecific stands of plants intraspecific competition usually results in self-thinning, the concurrent increase in biomass and decrease in density over time. Self-thinning may also result in a change in the spatial pattern of individuals, but so far the spatial dynamics of marine plants has not been investigated. The brown alga Himanthalia elongata ( L.) S. F. Gray forms dense monospecific stands on many northern temperate rocky shores, and various attributes (including its simple form) facilitated the study of the spatial dynamics of this species .
The spatial pattern of settling zygotes was examined in the laboratory. In the absence of water movement, substratum heterogeneity, and a point source, zygotes usually settled in clumps rather than randomly. Within the clumps zygotes appeared to be regularly distributed at a scale similar to the size of the zygotes themselves. Furthermore, the clumps themselves seemed to be regularly distributed. On the shore, well-established stands of "button-stage" Himanthalia populations were examined during a period of extensive growth and self-thinning. Individual plants were initially highly regular in spatial pattern but became less so over time. The pattern of plants dying during self-thinning was also highly regular and probably reflected existing spatial regularity. However, using a hypothesis of mortality as a random event, I found that smaller plants had a less than average survival potential, while larger plants had a greater than average chance. A consideration of the spatial pattern of plants alive at the end of the study revealed regularity at a scale of 2–7 mm but a random spatial pattern at larger scales, which might indicate a small sphere of influence of competing individuals. The best predictor of mean nearest neighbor distances in the populations was mean plant diameter .