XVI International Botanical Congess

Morphological plasticity in traits such as branching intensity and/or internode lengths give plants the potential to forage. Plasticity has been documented for many plants, but there are few empirical tests of whether plasticity leads to greater foraging success in natural habitats. In addition, growing plant parts circumnutate, or rotate about their central axis, with vines showing exaggerated circumnutation. The goal of this study is to contrast the foraging success of congeneric Lonicera vines that differ in their morphological plasticity and circumnutation behavior. I compared foraging success in a experimental garden made heterogeneous in respect to climbing opportunity. Foraging success was quantified by measuring each species' ability to (1) find uncolonized poles (2) remain in its original grid when a trellis was present, and (3) escape from its original grid when no trellis was present.