The reproductive strategy of a pollinator-limited Himalayan plant, Incarvillea mairei(Bignoniaceae)

BMC Plant Biology

Research Article

Hong Wang¹  Honglian Ai¹  Wei Zhou²  Dezhu Li²  Kun Xu³ 

[1] Key Laboratory for Plant Biodiversity and Biogeography of East Asia, Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming, China;Key Laboratory for Plant Biodiversity and Biogeography of East Asia, Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming, China;Plant Germplasm and Genomics Center, Germplasm Bank of Wild Species, Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming, China;Lijiang Alpine Botanic Garden, Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lijiang, China;

关键词: Himalaya-Hengduan mountains region;    Incarvillea mairei;    Plant-pollinator interaction;    Pollinator limitation;    Sensitive stigma;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2229-13-195

 received in 2012-12-17, accepted in 2013-11-26,  发布年份 2013

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundPlants may adapt to alpine habitats by specialization in the reproductive strategy and functional aspects of their flowers and pollination systems. Alpine habitats reduce the opportunities for cross-pollination in a relatively high proportion of alpine plant species, and self-pollination may be favored in these adverse conditions. Here, we investigated the mating system and pollination of Incarvillea mairei, a perennial Himalayan herb typically found at altitudes between 3000 and 4500 m.ResultsAnalyses of floral morphology, observation of plant-pollinator interactions, and hand pollination experiments were conducted in three natural populations. Outcrossing rates and effective numbers of pollen donors were assessed in 45 open-pollinated families by using progeny analysis based on seven microsatellite markers. Incarvillea mairei displayed a set of apparently specialized floral traits, the stigma is sensitive to touch and close immediately and its reopening allows a second opportunity for the receipt of pollen. The species is fully self-compatible but employs a predominantly outcrossing mating system according to parentage analysis (tm > 0.9). Fruit set was low (26.3%), whereas seed set was high (67.2%), indicating that this species suffers pollinator limitation. Its main effective pollinator was Halictus sp., and visitation frequency was low.ConclusionsFloral features such as having a sensitive stigma and anther-prongs, in conjunction with pollinator behavior, function together contributing to a set of unique reproductive adaptations that enhance outcrossing success. The increased floral longevity and high pollination efficiency operated as compensatory mechanisms to counteract low pollinator visitation frequency.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Ai et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2013. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.