Abstract
The adaptive significance and mechanism of patterns in floral sex allocation and female success within inflorescences has attracted attention recently, whereas few studies have examined genetic variation of intra-inflorescence pattern. The purpose of this study is to investigate patterns of reproduction within racemes in protandrous Aconitum gymnandrum Maxim., and illuminate potential mechanisms and genetic variation of such patterns. Data from pot experiment on 40 maternal families were collected in field. Anther number, pollen:ovule ratio and seed germination rate increased from bottom to top flowers within racemes, but other traits, such as gynoecium mass, carpel number, sepal galea height and seed production decreased significantly with flowering sequence. Variation in floral sex allocation within racemes in A. gymnandrum fitted entirely the prediction of protandry, which was not a result of architectural effect. Such selected pattern may result from a variety of factors influencing the mating environment, such as pollinator directionality, display size and flower longevity. Decline of female success within racemes in A. gymnandrum also resulted from male-biased allocation selected by variation in the mating environment, not resource competition or pollen limitation. Moreover, there was genetic variation for most reproductive traits and the position effect, as evinced by significant variation among families.
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Acknowledgments
We thank Y.-L. He, M-T Wang and X.-H. Zhou for helps in the field and lab. We thank Dr. R.A. Wesselingh for the valuable comments. We are very grateful to Dr. D. Maddox for the significant discussions and modifications. We thank two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments. This project was funded by a State key project for natural science foundation (90202009) to G.-Z. Du.
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Zhao, ZG., Meng, JL., Fan, BL. et al. Reproductive patterns within racemes in protandrous Aconitum gymnandrum (Ranunculaceae): potential mechanism and among-family variation. Plant Syst Evol 273, 247–256 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00606-008-0002-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00606-008-0002-6