Why do some plants cluster in cultivation?

[Nick_G]

Why do some plants that are normally solitary in habitat cluster freely in cultivation. Why does less intense light, more water and food lead to offsetting? I have seen Aylostera pygmaea in Argentina, all small, tight, solitary plants covered in sand with just the top of their single body poking above soil line but seed from these plants has produced heavily clustering plants. Why is this?

[ralphrmartin]

A response to much greater amounts of nutrient and water?

[el48tel]

Less moisture evaporated from a potentially smaller surface to volume ratio?

[Ali Baba]

Plant growth is very dependent on environmental factors, especially nutrients and water. Compare an oak in a woodland with one growing on a drystone wall. The latter will be starved of nutrients and have more stress from drought. As a result it will have fewer shorter branches than the woodland oak. The same is true of cacti, more water and food = bigger cacti with more branches

[FredG]

According to this viewtopic.php?f=36&t=171954 it's so that they can gather in a pack and go hunting.

[Nick_G]

But why does a cactus that is single headed in habitat cluster in cultivation? Why should more water and nutrients provoke this? If it was as simple as that they all would do it and they don't.

[Pattock]

According to this viewtopic.php?f=36&t=171954 it's so that they can gather in a pack and go hunting.

No, this is one individual plant with many branches and the other thread references co-operation between different individuals. Quite a different circumstance.

[FredG]

Nonsense is nonsense Pat

[el48tel]

Isn't branching influenced by gibberellins which control branching and seed growth? Can't these hormones be secreted out by one plant, and taken in by neighbouring plants? So one plant branching could cause others to follow suit.

[Pattock]

Nonsense is nonsense Pat

I am wondering if you read the journal article rather than just the sensational headline that substituted hunt for trap. What you wrote here was nonsense (or absurdist comedy, if you prefer), theirs was the result of research.