Abstract
Arisaema robustum, which has the ability to change sex, was studied in a temperate broadleaf forest of Sanseong-ri, Joongbu-myeon, Gwangju-gun, Kyonggi Province, Korea. \ulcornerThe study, carried out from 1993 to 1997, focused on population dynamics energy budget among organs, size distribution, mortality, the relationships between sex and size, seed production and germination rate. In terms of energy budget among the organs, the ratio of aboveground to belowground biomass was 36.6 : 63.4 in non-female plants, and 81.4 : 18.6 in female plants. Also, in female plants, the ration of leaf to sexual organ biomass was 39.5 : 41.9. Therefore, the belowground ratio of female plants was lower than that of non-female plants. Plants were classified into 8 levels relative to the amount of leaf area by $100cm^2$. The rates of the smallest and the largest classes were 49% and 1%, respectively, and population distribution by size was relatively stable. The mortality averaged 13.1% per year and decreased in inverse proportion to leaf size (6.6% in the smallest and 0.0% in the largest size classes). Leaf areas were $64.1{\pm}48.5cm^2$ in non-flowering plants, $232.1{\pm}123.9cm^2$ in males and $444.8{\pm}153.9cm^2$ in females. The increase rates of leaf area per year varied from 1.9% in plants changing from female tomale, to 152.4% in plants changing from non-flowering to female. But plants which remained female for 2 years showed a decrease of 34.7%. >From this result, it is thought that the female plants invest more energy to reproduction than to vegetative organs. The correlation coefficient (CC) value between plant size and the number of seeds produced (0.55) was larger than the CC value between plant size and total seed weight (0.73). That is, the larger the plant size, the heavier the seed produced. The germination rate increased along with seed weight, and it was 95% in plants which were over 60mg fresh weight/seed.
