Variation in the degree of reciprocal herkogamy affects the degree of legitimate pollination in a distylous species

AoB Plants
Xian-Feng JiangQing-Jun Li

Abstract

Distyly is a widespread floral polymorphism characterized by the flowers within a population showing reciprocal placement of the anthers and stigma. Darwin hypothesizes that distyly evolves to promote precise pollen transfer between morphs. Primula chungensis exhibits two types of anther heights, and these two types of anthers show pollen of two different size classes. To understand whether the stigma could capture more pollen grains from the anthers of the pollen donor as the separation between the stigma of pollen receiver and the anther of pollen donor decreased, the present research assessed the source of the pollen load in a series of open-pollinated flowers with continuous variation of style lengths. Individuals with continuous variation of style length were tagged, and the selected flowers in the tagged plants were emasculated the day before dehiscence. The stigma of the emasculated flowers was fixed in fuchsin gel at the end of blooming. We assessed the pollen sources on each stigma by taking photos under a microscope and measured the diameter of each conspecific pollen grain with ImageJ. We found that a shorter distance from the stigmas to the anthers of a pollen donor gave the flower a higher capacity to receive polle...Continue Reading

References

May 1, 1990·Trends in Ecology & Evolution·S C Barrett
Dec 12, 2013·Evolution; International Journal of Organic Evolution·Jurriaan M de VosElena Conti
Feb 9, 2017·The New Phytologist·Wei ZhouDe-Zhu Li
Sep 1, 1966·Evolution; International Journal of Organic Evolution·Robert Ornduff
Oct 1, 1994·Evolution; International Journal of Organic Evolution·Judy L Stone, James D Thomson

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Citations

Nov 21, 2019·Proceedings. Biological Sciences·Julian Brown, Saul A Cunningham

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