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Pollen limitation of female reproductive success at fine spatial scale in a gynodioecious and wind‐pollinated species, Beta vulgaris ssp. maritima
Author(s) -
DE CAUWER I.,
ARNAUD J.F.,
SCHMITT E.,
DUFAY M.
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
journal of evolutionary biology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.289
H-Index - 128
eISSN - 1420-9101
pISSN - 1010-061X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1420-9101.2010.02119.x
Subject(s) - gynodioecy , biology , pollen , offspring , reproductive success , ecology , evolution of sexual reproduction , spatial distribution , dioecy , demography , population , genetics , statistics , pregnancy , sociology , mathematics , gene
In sexually polymorphic plants, the spatial distribution of sexes is usually not random. Local variation in phenotype frequencies is expected to affect individual fitness of the different phenotypes. For gynodioecious species, with co‐occurrence of hermaphrodites and females, if sexual phenotypes are structured in space and pollen flow is spatially restricted, local pollen availability should vary among patches. Female fitness may thus be low when hermaphrodites are locally rare. To test this hypothesis, we analysed how the reproductive output of females varied among patches within two natural study sites of the gynodioecious wind‐pollinated Beta vulgaris ssp. maritima . Plants growing in female‐biased areas and experiencing pollen limitation were found to have low fruit and seed sets but did not reallocate resources towards better offspring. Our results show that fine‐scale processes influence individual fitness and the evolution of sex ratio in sexually polymorphic plants.