| Abstract Detail
Recent Topics Posters Lee, Kiana [1], Caruso, Christina [2]. Reduced pollination extends floral longevity and sex-phase duration in a native wildflower. Pollinator declines can reduce the quantity and quality of pollination services, resulting in less pollen deposited on flowers and lower seed production by plants. In response to these reductions, plants can plastically adjust floral traits, including floral longevity and sex-phase duration. But studies of plant responses to pollinator declines have primarily focused on floral evolution across generations rather than plasticity in floral traits within a generation. To test whether plants can respond to pollinator declines by plastically adjusting floral traits, we experimentally reduced pollinator access to female and hermaphroditic Lobelia siphilitica plants. We compared the longevity and male- and female-phase duration of L. siphilitica flowers exposed to ambient and reduced pollination treatments. We then tested whether plasticity in floral longevity and sex-phase duration affected daily display size and phenotypic gender. We found that experimentally reducing pollination extended the male-phase duration of early-season flowers and the longevity of late-season flowers. However, an extended male phase was not associated with a more male-biased phenotypic gender, and extended floral longevity was not associated with a larger daily display. Our results suggest that L. siphilitica plants can respond to pollinator declines by plastically adjusting both the longevity and sex-phase duration of individual flowers at different points in the season. Consequently, plasticity in flower-level traits could be one mechanism by which plants respond to decreases in pollination services caused by pollinator declines.
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1 - Western University, Department of Biology, 1151 Richmond St., London, ON, N5X 0E6, Canada
2 - University Of Guelph, Department Of Integrative Biology, Guelph, ON, N1G 2W1, Canada
Keywords:
Floral longevity
floral display
Lobelia siphilitica
phenotypic gender
phenotypic plasticity
pollination
pollinator declines
sex-phase duration.
Presentation Type: Recent Topics Poster
Session: P1, Recent Topics Posters
Location: Virtual/Virtual
Date: Thursday, July 22nd, 2021
Time: 5:00 PM(EDT)
Number: P1RT026
Abstract ID:1416
Candidate for Awards:None |
