Open AccessAnt pollination promotes spatial genetic structure in the long‐lived plant B orderea pyrenaica ( D ioscoreaceae)
Author(s) -
PérezCollazos Ernesto,
SegarraMoragues José Gabriel,
Villar Luis,
Catalán Pilar
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
biological journal of the linnean society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.906
H-Index - 112
eISSN - 1095-8312
pISSN - 0024-4066
DOI - 10.1111/bij.12562
Subject(s) - biology , outcrossing , ecology , pollen , mating system , genetic structure , biological dispersal , population , zoology , mating , genetic variation , demography , biochemistry , sociology , gene
Plant survival in alpine habitats is controlled, in several cases, by pollination and seed dispersal success. We have investigated the genetic structure and mating patterns of the endangered Borderea pyrenaica (Dioscoreaceae), one of the oldest herbaceous Pyrenean mountain plants. Simple sequence repeat‐based genotyping was carried out on all the reproductive female and male individuals and in all the female‐descendent progenies of a population of this plant. Although the offspring sampling (246) was twice the size of the adult sampling (122), the latter group showed higher levels of heterozygosity and approximately 20% more alleles than the offspring. Probabilistic spatial neighbourhood modelling of parentage analysis, based on the exponential‐power type model, showed immigration rates of pollen at 63.3%. The present study also detected a strong spatial clustering; most of the sired seeds of B. pyrenaica (68.83%) occurred at distances of up to 20 m, whereas kinship coefficients of adult plants reached zero at spatial distances ( d ) < 5 m, and 5 < d < 10 m for females and males, respectively. These results support the hypothesis of a terrestrial ant‐mediated, rather than a flying insect‐mediated pollination in B. pyrenaica .