By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Ecology, Environment & Conservation -- Investigators publish new report on Ecology. According to news reporting out of Beijing, People’s Republic of China, by VerticalNews editors, research stated, “Flowering plants exhibit striking interspecific and intraspecific variation in flower number, which strongly influences the reproductive success of animal-pollinated plants. However, the reproductive consequences of producing a single flower are poorly understood.”
Financial support for this research came from National Natural Science Foundation of China.
Our news journalists obtained a quote from the research from the Institute of Botany, “Here, we test if plants producing a single flower have a reproductive disadvantage compared with plants producing multiple flowers by combining field investigation of five deceptive orchids and a survey of published literature. Pollen limitation was estimated by comparing fruit production between hand pollination and open pollination. Flowering frequency was monitored over years to assess the potential advantage of producing a single flower. Both single- and multiple-flowered species suffered strong pollen limitation. However, single-flowered species had significantly lower fruit set and produced fewer seeds per individual, although they had a significantly higher pollen removal than species with multiple flowers. A phylogenetically independent contrast of 28 species representing four of the five subfamilies of Orchidaceae revealed that fruit set was significantly positively associated with flower number. Both pollen removal and fruit set had a positive relationship with flower number within the multiple-flowered species.Synthesis. Current data and phylogenetically independent contrast support the hypothesis that producing a single flower has reproductive disadvantages. Single-flowered species may compensate for low female success through high flowering frequency over years.”
According to the news editors, the research concluded: “This study provides insight into costs and benefits of producing a single flower in deceptive orchids.”
For more information on this research see: Pollen limitation, reproductive success and flowering frequency in single-flowered plants. Journal of Ecology , 2018;106(1):19-30. Journal of Ecology can be contacted at: Wiley, 111 River St, Hoboken 07030-5774, NJ, USA. (Wiley-Blackwell - http://www.wiley.com/; Journal of Ecology - http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1365-2745)
Our news journalists report that additional information may be obtained by contacting H.Q. Sun, Chinese Academy Sci, State Key Lab Systemat & Evolutionary Bot, Inst Bot, Beijing, People’s Republic of China. Additional authors for this research include B.Q. Huang, X.H. Yu, C.B. Tian, Q.X. Peng and D.J. An.
The direct object identifier (DOI) for that additional information is: https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2745.12834. This DOI is a link to an online electronic document that is either free or for purchase, and can be your direct source for a journal article and its citation.
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CITATION: (2018-01-12), New Ecology Data Have Been Reported by Investigators at Institute of Botany (Pollen limitation, reproductive success and flowering frequency in single-flowered plants), Ecology, Environment & Conservation, 961, ISSN: 1945-6506, BUTTER® ID: 014967469
From the newsletter Ecology, Environment & Conservation.
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