Fig. 1

Experimental design. a Clonal ramets of 10 ecotypes were forced to root in separate individual pots and connected by stolons. At the end of the experiment, the clonal network consisted of the mother ramet and four daughter ramets. The daughter ramets (1st and 2nd mother ramets) were positioned along the two primary stolons produced by the mother ramet. Pots with mother ramets were filled with homogenized field soil, those with daughter ramets contained sterilized substrate, and contact was only by the internode that separated two consecutive ramets. M mother, D1 1st daughter, D2 2nd daughter. b Picture of the experimental design: the pots are only connected by the internodes