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Influence of sexual dimorphism and dichromatism on reproductive success in a rare native cactus

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Abstract

Identifying plant sexual dimorphic traits is critical in advancing our knowledge on plant–pollinator interactions. For example, dimorphism in floral colors, or sexual dichromatism, is a crucial mediator of pollinator choice on foraging decisions. We studied Cylindropuntia wolfii, a model system, with diverse flower colors and a functionally dioecious sexual system. However, evidence suggests that sexual reproduction is limited in this species as it has a low seed set especially in naturally pollinated fruits. Thus, it is critical to this native species’ conservation to investigate its relationship with pollinators. Our goals were to: (a) investigate the sexual dimorphism including the sexual dichromatism in the flowers of the cactus, and (b) determine whether sexually dimorphic traits affect the pollinator attraction of both the sexes. We measured several quantitative and qualitative traits and compared them between male and female flowers. Then we recorded the pollinator visitation rate in nature for both sexes and tracked pollinator color preference using fluorescent dyes as pollen analogues. Our study showed that male flowers of C. wolfii are bigger and brighter, and they attract more potential pollinators than females, supporting the hypothesis that sexual dimorphism influences pollinator visitation preference. Fluorescence dichromatism, in which female flowers’ anthers fluoresce more than male flower anthers suggest this could be female flowers’ strategy to compensate for their dark colors and small size. The results from this study showed that C. wolfii exhibits sexual dichromatism and fluorescence dichromatism, which is a novel finding in plant research.

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The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank Carlos Portillo, Dillon Jones, Krishna Murthy Ramamoorthy, Kyle Gunther, Jordan Waits, Nelly Rodriguez, Ryan Buck and Yazmin Lommel who kindly helped us in our field work and material processing; Dr. Douglas Yanega (UCR) for help in identification of bees; Dr. Nicholas Barber (SDSU) for help in identification of beetles; SDGE, Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in Imperial County, and Sam Schultz, the owner of the desert view tower, for providing access to the field sites.

Funding

This study was funded by Hispanic-Serving Institutions Education Grants (HSI) Program [grant no. 2018–38422-28614/project accession no. 1016839] from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture, Irwin M. Newell Graduate Research Fund (UC Riverside), 2021 Emergency Spring Funding for Student Assistance with Research, Scholarship and Creative Activities (RSCA) SDSU and Paul Jorgensen Research Grant (Anza Borrego Foundation). We wish to express our sincere appreciation to the AWIS-SD Scholarship, Joshua Tree National Park Graduate Research Grant and Completion of Research and Creative Activity (CORE) Fellowship (SDSU) for their generous support, which was instrumental in the completion of this research.

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  1. Department of Biology, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA, USA

    Niveditha Ramadoss, Scarlet Steele & Lluvia Flores-Rentería

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  1. Niveditha Ramadoss
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LFR and NR conceived and designed the study. NR and SS executed the methods needed for the studies. NR analyzed the data and made figures. NR and LFR wrote the manuscript and secured funding; all authors provided editorial advice.

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Correspondence to Niveditha Ramadoss.

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Communicated by Susan Whitehead.

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Ramadoss, N., Steele, S. & Flores-Rentería, L. Influence of sexual dimorphism and dichromatism on reproductive success in a rare native cactus. Oecologia 203, 383–394 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-023-05473-z

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