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Investment in Seed Physical Defence Is Associated with Species' Light Requirement for Regeneration and Seed Persistence: Evidence from Macaranga Species in Borneo

The seed stage is often critical in determining the regeneration success of plants. Seeds must survive an array of seed predators and pathogens and germinate under conditions favourable for seedling establishment. To maximise recruitment success plants protect seeds using a diverse set of chemical a...

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Autores principales: Tiansawat, Pimonrat, Davis, Adam S., Berhow, Mark A., Zalamea, Paul-Camilo, Dalling, James W.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2014
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4057182/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24927025
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0099691
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author Tiansawat, Pimonrat
Davis, Adam S.
Berhow, Mark A.
Zalamea, Paul-Camilo
Dalling, James W.
author_facet Tiansawat, Pimonrat
Davis, Adam S.
Berhow, Mark A.
Zalamea, Paul-Camilo
Dalling, James W.
author_sort Tiansawat, Pimonrat
collection PubMed
description The seed stage is often critical in determining the regeneration success of plants. Seeds must survive an array of seed predators and pathogens and germinate under conditions favourable for seedling establishment. To maximise recruitment success plants protect seeds using a diverse set of chemical and physical defences. However, the relationship between these defence classes, and their association with other life history traits, is not well understood. Data on seed coat thickness and fracture resistance, and the abundance and diversity of potential defensive compounds were collected for 10 tree species of Macaranga from Borneo. The data were used to test whether there is a trade-off in physical versus chemical defence investment, and to determine how investment varies with seed mass, and light requirement for regeneration. Across species there was no correlation between seed coat thickness and abundance of potential defensive compounds, indicating the absence of a direct trade-off between defence classes. While chemical defences were not correlated to other traits, physical defences were positively correlated with light requirement for regeneration. For a subset of five Macaranga species we evaluated the relative investment in chemical and physical defence to seed persistence in the soil, measured as the time to half initial seed viability (seed half-life). Half-life was negatively related to the ratio of potential defensive compound abundance to seed coat thickness, suggesting that species with long persistence invested in physical defence more than stored chemical defences. These results indicate that investment in seed defences are associated with species' light requirements for regeneration, rather than scaling positively with seed mass. Furthermore, chemical defences, although highly variable among species, do not appear to be critical to long term persistence of Macaranga seeds, and may be important in defending seeds from natural enemies distinct from those found in the soil.
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spelling pubmed-40571822014-06-18 Investment in Seed Physical Defence Is Associated with Species' Light Requirement for Regeneration and Seed Persistence: Evidence from Macaranga Species in Borneo Tiansawat, Pimonrat Davis, Adam S. Berhow, Mark A. Zalamea, Paul-Camilo Dalling, James W. PLoS One Research Article The seed stage is often critical in determining the regeneration success of plants. Seeds must survive an array of seed predators and pathogens and germinate under conditions favourable for seedling establishment. To maximise recruitment success plants protect seeds using a diverse set of chemical and physical defences. However, the relationship between these defence classes, and their association with other life history traits, is not well understood. Data on seed coat thickness and fracture resistance, and the abundance and diversity of potential defensive compounds were collected for 10 tree species of Macaranga from Borneo. The data were used to test whether there is a trade-off in physical versus chemical defence investment, and to determine how investment varies with seed mass, and light requirement for regeneration. Across species there was no correlation between seed coat thickness and abundance of potential defensive compounds, indicating the absence of a direct trade-off between defence classes. While chemical defences were not correlated to other traits, physical defences were positively correlated with light requirement for regeneration. For a subset of five Macaranga species we evaluated the relative investment in chemical and physical defence to seed persistence in the soil, measured as the time to half initial seed viability (seed half-life). Half-life was negatively related to the ratio of potential defensive compound abundance to seed coat thickness, suggesting that species with long persistence invested in physical defence more than stored chemical defences. These results indicate that investment in seed defences are associated with species' light requirements for regeneration, rather than scaling positively with seed mass. Furthermore, chemical defences, although highly variable among species, do not appear to be critical to long term persistence of Macaranga seeds, and may be important in defending seeds from natural enemies distinct from those found in the soil. Public Library of Science 2014-06-13 /pmc/articles/PMC4057182/ /pubmed/24927025 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0099691 Text en © 2014 Tiansawat et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Tiansawat, Pimonrat
Davis, Adam S.
Berhow, Mark A.
Zalamea, Paul-Camilo
Dalling, James W.
Investment in Seed Physical Defence Is Associated with Species' Light Requirement for Regeneration and Seed Persistence: Evidence from Macaranga Species in Borneo
title Investment in Seed Physical Defence Is Associated with Species' Light Requirement for Regeneration and Seed Persistence: Evidence from Macaranga Species in Borneo
title_full Investment in Seed Physical Defence Is Associated with Species' Light Requirement for Regeneration and Seed Persistence: Evidence from Macaranga Species in Borneo
title_fullStr Investment in Seed Physical Defence Is Associated with Species' Light Requirement for Regeneration and Seed Persistence: Evidence from Macaranga Species in Borneo
title_full_unstemmed Investment in Seed Physical Defence Is Associated with Species' Light Requirement for Regeneration and Seed Persistence: Evidence from Macaranga Species in Borneo
title_short Investment in Seed Physical Defence Is Associated with Species' Light Requirement for Regeneration and Seed Persistence: Evidence from Macaranga Species in Borneo
title_sort investment in seed physical defence is associated with species' light requirement for regeneration and seed persistence: evidence from macaranga species in borneo
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4057182/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24927025
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0099691
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