Morphology of Echinocystis lobata grown in the garden

Abstract

Most histories of biological invasions are related to human-mediated processes. Intensional and unintentional anthropogenic activities are recorded as initial sources for extention of species distribution range. Among alien plants, ornamental gardening is the most frequently documented reason of species arrival to the new sites, which significantly differ in geography, climate parameters and biotic neighbours. The northern countries are less rich in species numbers, compared to the southernmost regions. In colder climate conditions naturalisation of introduced species is presently facilitated by climate warming. Capacity of escape from the areas of cultivation to the wild nature depends on set of species morphological, physiological and biochemical traits. Size of aboveground part is crucial covercompeting neighbouring local plants, occupying bigger space for exposition of photosynthetic organs to the light, also for wider dispersion of the seeds. Compared to ongoing molecular evaluation of inders, morphophysiological traits of plants oftenly remains underestimated. In Lithuania Echinocystis lobata is distinct alien for its ongoing intensive spread. Biology of this species is insufficiantly analysed along its invasive distribution range. Our study was aimed at evaluation of morphological and physiological parameters of wild cucumber Echinocystis lobata grown in the garden. For this purpose two years study was performed, analyzing parameters of the aboveground part. Mass of separate organs, lengths of the 1st-5th order stems, number of fruits and seeds were recorded, comparing two year data. It could be concluded, that among the main reasons of aggressive spread of this species, is very intensive stem growth and production of numerous seeds in Lithuania climate conditions.