Effects of population structure on pollen flow, clonality rates and reproductive success in fragmented Serapias lingua populations

BACKGROUND: Fragmentation of habitats by roads, railroads, fields, buildings and other human activities can affect population size, pollination success, sexual and asexual reproduction specially in plants showing pollinator limitation, such as Mediterranean orchids. In this study, we assessed pollen flow, selfing rates, vegetative reproduction and female reproductive success and their correlations with habitat characters in nine fragmented subpopulations of Serapias lingua. To improve understanding of population structure effects on plant biology, we examined genetic differentiation among populations, pollen flow, selfing rates and clonal reproduction using nuclear microsatellite markers. RESULTS: Smaller populations showed a significant heterozygote deficit occurred at all five nuclear microsatellite loci, the coefficient of genetic differentiation among populations was 0.053 and pairwise F(ST) was significantly correlated with the geographical distance between populations. Paternity analysis of seeds showed that most pollen flow occurred within a population and there was a positive correlation between percentage of received pollen and distance between populations. The fruit production rate varied between 5.10 % and 20.30 % and increased with increasing population size, while the percentage of viable seeds (78-85 %) did not differ significantly among populations. The extent of clonality together with the clonal and sexual reproductive strategies varied greatly among the nine populations and correlated with the habitats where they occur. The small, isolated populations tended to have high clonal diversity and low fruit production, whereas the large populations with little disturbance were prone to have reductions in clonal growth and increased sexual reproduction. CONCLUSIONS: We found that clonality offers an advantage in small and isolated populations of S. lingua, where clones may have a greater ability to persist than sexually reproducing individuals.