Response of Cucumis sativus to Neighbors in a Species-Specific Manner

Abstract

Plants exhibit various behaviors of growth and allocation that play an important role in plant performance and social interaction as they grow together. However, it is unclear how Cucumis sativus plants respond to different neighbors. Here, we performed 5 neighbor combinations with C. sativus as the focal species. The selected materials of C. sativus responded to neighbors and exhibited different behavior strategies in a species-specific manner. All competition treatments reduced the growth of C. sativus seedlings to a certain extent, but only the Eruca sativa neighbor treatment reached a significant level in total root length and shoot biomass. Compared with growing under solitary conditions, focal plants avoided, tended to and did not change their allocation to their nearby plants. The larger the biomass of their neighbors, the stronger the inhibition of the focal plants. In addition, no significant correlations between growth and allocation variables were found, suggesting that growth and allocation are two important aspects of C. sativus behavioral strategies. Our findings provide reference and support for agricultural production of C. sativus, but further research and practice are still needed.