TO BE OR NOT TO BE BETTER POLLINATED: DIFFERENCES BETWEEN SEX MORPHS IN MARGINAL

GYNODIOECIOUS POPULATIONS.

Introduction

The scientists were studying the changes in the pollinator communities of the marginal plant

populations can affect their pollination quantity or quality, geographic variation in pollination

success can alter the reproductive advantage that female plants require to persist within

gynodioecious populations and determining the pollination success at pre-zygotic stage in self-

compatible gynodioecious species that whose female do not exhibit enhanced seed production.

The scientists wanted to determine if inadequate pollen receipt in marginal population was the

cause of impaired reproduction and declining success in distribution of species. They wanted to

determine if the low-quality pollinators can result into poor pollination transfer, low pollen

tube survival, and zygote death, or whether the shifts in pollinators community may have effect

on the mating system with in the marginal populations and its relevancy to hermaphroditic

plants.

The Scientists also wanted to determine whether the female plants had advantage over the

hermaphrodite to persist within population, depending on the genetic control of sex producing

higher quantity of seeds depending on the pollination success in each sex, and understanding

how sex morphs coexist with in the population, and how female frequency can vary among the

populations, the quality of pollination, and the seed production may be or may not be achieved.

The scientists also analyzed the pollen grains determining pollen success by using piecewise

regression analysis, it uses traditional hand-pollination experiments. They analyzed

geographical variations in pollination intensity and quality of the gynodioecious shrub Daphne

laureola in southern Iberian Peninsula. The main pollinator is the small-pollen bee visits female

plants less often than hermaphrodites. They expected to have the variation in the quality and

quantity of pollination success in geographical context and on the pollination in the marginal

population and decreased difference in pollination success between sex morphs.

Materials and Methods

Specie studied was Daphne laureola L . (Thymelaeaceae ) an evergreen shrub with a disjunct

Palearctic distribution in mountain ranges of Europe and Northern Africa Iberian Peninsula, the

study was conducted in the Baetic ranges where the specie flowers from January to April. The

population at the western edge was referred to as ( marginal population) and the area of Sierra

de Cazorla, was local continuous was referred to as (core population), the small beetle

Rosehauer is the main pollinator in the core population and throughout the flowering season it

never visited the marginal plants. Except the bees and bumble bee were the main floral visitors

in marginal population. They used a table show the general features of six Daphne luareola

populations studied. The study area also included the Sierra de Cazorla the local continuous

core the (core region) . They marked 15 random female plants and 25 random hermaphroditic

plants to avoid potential artifacts due to uncontrolled variation in sex ratio among population.

12 wilted flowers were used for pollination and productive success. They preserved flowers in

different chemical solutions, rinsed them off and dried them in preparation for dissection and

measurement. The pollen grains in each tube were counted using a fluorescence microscope.

They explored the relationship between pre-and postzygotic fitness using Pearson correlation,
the mean numbers of the pollen grains deposited and on the stigma, pollen tubes in style since

they could not be detached from the ovary.

Results

In the quantitative success they found out that the pollen receipt and the pollen in the tubes

was over-dispersed or was of greater variance than what they had expected. Results revealed

that there were lower pollen grains developing in hermaphroditic flower tubes than in the

female flowers in the core and in marginal regions. The sex morphs pollen grains growth was

greater in the marginal population than in core population. The study also revealed that both

sexes in marginal population had higher quality and quantity of pollination than in both sexes in

core population was due to how often they were visited by pollinators. There was an increase

was noticed on female flowers, but the sex morphs had difference in results, though female

flowers had received more pollen on their stigma from the sex morphs they had lower

proportions of pollen grains developing. Geographic variation resulted into high or low

pollination success, due to sex morphs discriminating against female flowers, in core population

small pollen- beetles were not attracted to female plants. On contrary in marginal population,

both sex morphs were visited by both bees and bumblebees. In both regions they concluded

that visual display or attractiveness of the petals in both female and hermaphroditic flowers

was crucial for attracting pollinators, since females were less attractive in core populations that

caused less pollination grains.

Discussion
After reading the article I learned that some flowers are females and others are

hermaphrodites and both flowers attract different kinds of pollinators. I learned that

hermaphrodite flowers attract small beetle-pollinators in the core region and the female

flowers are discriminated and that leads to low success pollination in female plants and

hermaphrodite flowers have advantage.

I learned that in marginal population the pollinators visit both female and hermaphrodite

flowers due to the attractiveness of the flower petals. There are many factors that determine

whether the flower will have successive pollination; these include geographical variations,

coexistence of female and hermaphroditic flowers in the same region, with discriminator small

beetle- pollinators against female flowers, female flowers in the core region will suffer

depletion, but in marginal population they have a chance to flourish.

Reference:

http://www.amjbot.org/content/103/3.toc : To be or not to be better pollinated: Differences

between sex morphs in marginal gynodioecious populations. Antonio R. Castilla, Conchita

Alonso, and Carlos M. Herrera. ( March 2016 103:388-395; published ahead of print 29

February 2016, doi:10.3732/ajb.1500167) AMERICAN JOURNAL OF BOTANY. For the special

Issue: Ecology and Evolution of Pollen Perfomance Pages 388-395.