Pollination Biology and Breeding System of Maple Species Acer oblongum Wall. ex DC. (Sapindaceae) Showing Mixed Syndrome
- PDF / 3,693,757 Bytes
- 12 Pages / 595.276 x 790.866 pts Page_size
- 85 Downloads / 121 Views
RESEARCH ARTICLE
Pollination Biology and Breeding System of Maple Species Acer oblongum Wall. ex DC. (Sapindaceae) Showing Mixed Syndromes of Wind and Insect Pollination Neha Yadav1 • Arun K. Pandey1
•
Ashok K. Bhatnagar1
Received: 14 January 2019 / Revised: 21 June 2019 / Accepted: 28 June 2019 The National Academy of Sciences, India 2019
Abstract Acer oblongum is unique among maples because of the leaf structure and cryptic monoecy. In the present study, an in-depth investigation of reproductive biology has been carried out to study the pollination biology and breeding system of the tree species. The flowers show mixed characteristics of both entomophilous and anemophilous pollination in structure and pollen characteristics, respectively, and can thus be considered as ambophilous (exhibiting traits conducive to both insect and wind pollination). The wind was the primary means of pollination, but exclusion experiments showed that insects (Apis dorsata and syrphid fly) also facilitated pollination by 3–5%. The stigma of hermaphrodite flowers is located 2–3 cm above the level of indehiscent anthers. Interestingly, the insect pollinators hardly came in contact with the pistil; they only brought the pollen close to the stigma and shed it in its vicinity, to be trapped almost like the wind-borne pollen grains on the stigmatic papillae. Anthers of hermaphrodite flowers serve a relict function by attracting
Significance Statement Acer oblongum is a threatened Himalayan tree species that is valued for its timber. The species is vanishing from its natural habitats due to anthropogenic activities and also due to a low regeneration rate. To know the reasons for poor regeneration in nature, it is important to study the reproductive biology of the species. This type of study is a prerequisite in developing a speciesspecific conservation programme. & Arun K. Pandey [email protected] Neha Yadav [email protected] Ashok K. Bhatnagar [email protected] 1
Department of Botany, University of Delhi, Delhi 110007, India
insect pollinators, but not contributing to self or crosspollination. Fruit set following manual geitonogamous and xenogamous pollination showed a difference. The probable reason accounting for low fruit set seems to be the limited number of pollen donors (Staminate type II flowers), high pollen sterility, sparse distribution of individual trees, and geitonogamous pollen. Fruits are dry, indehiscent samaras. Mature fruits do not invariably bear seeds inside since hollow fruits are formed even when ovules inside remain unfertilized. Keywords Acer oblongum Cryptic monoecy Ambophilous Geitonogamy Pollen sterility Stigmatic papillae Xenogamy
Introduction India is bestowed with a rich flora distributed over a wide range of habitats. Botanists around the world are nowadays more interested in studying the reproductive biology of plant species because of the high pace of erosion of plant wealth due to habitat loss, fragmentation, overexploitation, climate change, and pollution [1]. Reproductiv
Data Loading...
