S.A. Richards
Variation in pollination: causes and consequences for plant reproduction
Richards, S.A.; Williams, N.M.; Harder, L.D.
Authors
N.M. Williams
L.D. Harder
Abstract
Pollen dispersal by animals varies extensively because of differences in pollinator visitation rates among plants, dissimilar pollination by the various pollinators that visit individual plants, and stochastic variation in deposition as an individual pollinator disperses a plant’s pollen to subsequently visited recipient flowers. Such variation reduces expected female and male success if seed production decelerates with increasing pollen receipt, because less than average receipt diminishes mean seed production more than copious pollination increases in (Jensen’s inequality). We report empirical studies of the nature and magnitude of pollen dispersal variance, which provide the basis for a numerical model of the consequences of dispersal for expected seed production. Model fitting revealed that dispersal of Brassica napus pollen by bumblebees and especially butterflies exhibited much more variation than is expected of a binomial process and was best modeled as a beta-binomial process with a constant mean. Overdispersion arose primarily during pollen dispersal by individual insects, since differences between individuals of the same pollinator type were limited. Our model revealed variance limitation as a previously unrecognized, substantial, and ubiquitous component of pollen limitation of seed production. Variance limitation should select for floral traits that increase pollinator visitation, reduce dispersal variance, or reduce the postpollination nonlinearities that cause Jensen’s inequality.
Citation
Richards, S., Williams, N., & Harder, L. (2009). Variation in pollination: causes and consequences for plant reproduction. The American Naturalist, 174(3), 382-398. https://doi.org/10.1086/603626
Journal Article Type | Article |
---|---|
Publication Date | Sep 1, 2009 |
Deposit Date | Aug 13, 2009 |
Publicly Available Date | Mar 29, 2024 |
Journal | American Naturalist |
Print ISSN | 0003-0147 |
Publisher | The University of Chicago Press |
Peer Reviewed | Peer Reviewed |
Volume | 174 |
Issue | 3 |
Pages | 382-398 |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1086/603626 |
Keywords | Jensen’s inequality, Model selection, Pollination, Pollen limitation. |
Files
Published Journal Article
(2.7 Mb)
PDF
Copyright Statement
© 2009 by The University of Chicago
You might also like
Demonstrating frequency-dependent transmission of sarcoptic mange in red foxes
(2014)
Journal Article
Human observers impact habituated samango monkeys’ perceived landscape of fear
(2014)
Journal Article
Downloadable Citations
About Durham Research Online (DRO)
Administrator e-mail: dro.admin@durham.ac.uk
This application uses the following open-source libraries:
SheetJS Community Edition
Apache License Version 2.0 (http://www.apache.org/licenses/)
PDF.js
Apache License Version 2.0 (http://www.apache.org/licenses/)
Font Awesome
SIL OFL 1.1 (http://scripts.sil.org/OFL)
MIT License (http://opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.html)
CC BY 3.0 ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/)
Powered by Worktribe © 2024
Advanced Search