ABSTRACT
Vegetative propagation and apomixis may be interpreted as a way of increasing the life expectancy of a particular genet and evolutionary lineage. Apomictic behavior has profound ecological implications. Much of the information is deductions and verbal models of general ecological theories, or storytelling. In the neo-Darwinistic theory of natural selection, fitness may be described as the relative number of descendants left by a particular genotype compared to other genotypes. Since the differences affect ecological interactions, neither intraspecific nor interspecific competition theories alone are sufficient for the solution for a particular problem; some combination of these theories are required. Several possible ecological mechanisms allowing coexistence among clones and between sexual and apomictic lineages have been presented; for example, niche differentiation, disturbancies, frequency-dependent selection, ecological similarity which may prolong the time needed for exclusion, and phenotypic plasticity which may also prolong transient coexistence.
