We have used Hydrocotyle bonariensis as a model clonal species to examine the adaptive significance of resource integration and morhophological plasticity in environments where resources are patchy in space and/or in time such as found in coastal dune systems.   Hydrocotyle can form large clones consisting of thousands of interconnected ramets spaning over  40 square meters of dune habitat.  Using experiments that compared severed to intact clones grown across multiple resource gradients, similar to those present in dunes, we found that resource integration conferred a net benefit to clones grown in heterogeneous environments as measured by paramets associated with genet fitness.   Within Hydrocotyle clones, the structure and functioning of an individual ramet was determined by:  1) the response of that ramet to its local environment and 2) its response to resource integration within the clone.   Additional experiments showed that physiological integration also ameliorated the effects of sand burial and soil salinity.

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