Question

In alpine and tundra habitats, plants have to cope with severe environmental conditions (cold and wind) during winter. In the summer, they produce extreme floral displays in order to attract pollinators, since the summers are short and the reproductive window is small. Discuss these strategies from the point of view of Grime’s C-S-R model.

Answer 1

C-S-R triangle theory a Universal adaptive strategy theory given by Grime. Here C means competitors i.e those plant which comepete to other plant when Their is less stress and less disturbance which make them larger in size high phenotypic plasticity and productive. In S means Stress tolerators i.e those plants which are under high stress and low disturbance , they usually grow slow, leaves survive longer, nutrition retention is high and they have less phenotypic plasticity. R means ruderal i.e plant under high disturbance but low stress. Plant life span is shorter and produce large amount of seed In a short period of time. So in given condition when it is winter they follow the S strategy while in summer they uses R strategy to cope up with the environment to continue their life cycle.