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Wind or insect pollination? Ambophily in a subtropical gymnospermGnetum parvifolium(Gnetales)
- Source :
- Plant Species Biology. 31:272-279
- Publication Year :
- 2015
- Publisher :
- Wiley, 2015.
-
Abstract
- Gnetum (Gnetales) has long been regarded as insect pollinated due to its range-restricted distribution in tropical rain forests, where wind pollination is supposed to be detrimental. However, ubiquitous pollen limitation in the tropics might cause transition to anemophily, or even ambophily for reproductive assurance, especially for gymnosperms such as Gnetum, which exhibit various anemophilous syndromes, including absence of petals, greenish color of strobili, dioecy and uniovulate flowers. Pollination treatments applied to Gnetum parvifolium in southern China revealed this rare and endangered species to be pollen limited and incapable of apomixis. Pollen grains of G. parvifolium did not adhere to each other and could be trapped by interception traps near the male and female strobili. Seed set in the netted treatment (anemophily) was significantly higher than in the bagged treatment (apomixis) but lower than open pollination (anemophily and entomophily), indicating that both wind and biotic pollination contributed to seed production of G. parvifolium. The occurrence of ambophily in Gnetum and the prevalence of anemophily in Ehpedra and Welwitschia suggest that wind may also play a role in the pollination of the ancient Gnetales.
- Subjects :
- 0106 biological sciences
Ecology
biology
Gnetum
Pollination
Entomophily
Welwitschia
Plant Science
biology.organism_classification
medicine.disease_cause
010603 evolutionary biology
01 natural sciences
Open pollination
Gymnosperm
Pollen
Botany
Anemophily
medicine
Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
010606 plant biology & botany
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 0913557X
- Volume :
- 31
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Plant Species Biology
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi...........efe21ca7b9eeaae988fa3afa4325fe36
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1111/1442-1984.12112