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Reproductive biology of an endangered lithophytic shrub and implications for its conservation

BACKGROUND: Plants in cliff habitats may evolve specific reproductive strategies to cope with harsh environments, and unraveling these reproductive characteristics can improve our understanding of survival strategies and lithophyte evolution. This understanding is especially important for efforts to...

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Autores principales: Wu, Yuan-Mi, Shen, Xue-Li, Tong, Ling, Lei, Feng-Wei, Xia, Xiao-Fei, Mu, Xian-Yun, Zhang, Zhi-Xiang
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8862588/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35193519
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12870-022-03466-3
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author Wu, Yuan-Mi
Shen, Xue-Li
Tong, Ling
Lei, Feng-Wei
Xia, Xiao-Fei
Mu, Xian-Yun
Zhang, Zhi-Xiang
author_facet Wu, Yuan-Mi
Shen, Xue-Li
Tong, Ling
Lei, Feng-Wei
Xia, Xiao-Fei
Mu, Xian-Yun
Zhang, Zhi-Xiang
author_sort Wu, Yuan-Mi
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Plants in cliff habitats may evolve specific reproductive strategies to cope with harsh environments, and unraveling these reproductive characteristics can improve our understanding of survival strategies and lithophyte evolution. This understanding is especially important for efforts to protect rare and endemic plants. Here, we investigated the reproductive biology of Lonicera oblata, an endangered lithophytic shrub that is scattered in highly fragmented and isolated cliff habitats of the Taihang and Yan mountains in North China. RESULTS: Flowers of L. oblata are herkogamous and protandrous, characteristics that can prevent autogamy at the single-flower level, and insects are necessary for pollination. The outcrossing index, pollen/ovule ratio, and the results of hand pollination were measured and all revealed a mixed mating system for L. oblata, that combines cross-fertilization and partial self-fertilization. The floral traits of L. oblata of zygomorphic and brightly yellowish corolla, heavy fragrance, and rich nectar, suggest an entomophilous pollination system. Sweat bees were observed as the most effective pollinators but their visiting frequencies were not high. Pollen limitation may limit the reproductive success of L. oblata. CONCLUSIONS: We determined the reproductive characteristics of L. oblata, a critically endangered species endemic to cliffs in North China, providing insight into its endangerment and suggesting conservation strategies. L. oblata has highly pollinator-dependent self-fertilization as part of a mixed mating system. Floral features such as low-flowering synchrony, asynchronous anthers dehiscence, and high duration of stigma receptivity, improve pollination efficiency in the case of low pollinator service. Our work provides reference information to understand the survival strategies and conservation of L. oblata and other lithophytes. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12870-022-03466-3.
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spelling pubmed-88625882022-02-23 Reproductive biology of an endangered lithophytic shrub and implications for its conservation Wu, Yuan-Mi Shen, Xue-Li Tong, Ling Lei, Feng-Wei Xia, Xiao-Fei Mu, Xian-Yun Zhang, Zhi-Xiang BMC Plant Biol Research BACKGROUND: Plants in cliff habitats may evolve specific reproductive strategies to cope with harsh environments, and unraveling these reproductive characteristics can improve our understanding of survival strategies and lithophyte evolution. This understanding is especially important for efforts to protect rare and endemic plants. Here, we investigated the reproductive biology of Lonicera oblata, an endangered lithophytic shrub that is scattered in highly fragmented and isolated cliff habitats of the Taihang and Yan mountains in North China. RESULTS: Flowers of L. oblata are herkogamous and protandrous, characteristics that can prevent autogamy at the single-flower level, and insects are necessary for pollination. The outcrossing index, pollen/ovule ratio, and the results of hand pollination were measured and all revealed a mixed mating system for L. oblata, that combines cross-fertilization and partial self-fertilization. The floral traits of L. oblata of zygomorphic and brightly yellowish corolla, heavy fragrance, and rich nectar, suggest an entomophilous pollination system. Sweat bees were observed as the most effective pollinators but their visiting frequencies were not high. Pollen limitation may limit the reproductive success of L. oblata. CONCLUSIONS: We determined the reproductive characteristics of L. oblata, a critically endangered species endemic to cliffs in North China, providing insight into its endangerment and suggesting conservation strategies. L. oblata has highly pollinator-dependent self-fertilization as part of a mixed mating system. Floral features such as low-flowering synchrony, asynchronous anthers dehiscence, and high duration of stigma receptivity, improve pollination efficiency in the case of low pollinator service. Our work provides reference information to understand the survival strategies and conservation of L. oblata and other lithophytes. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12870-022-03466-3. BioMed Central 2022-02-22 /pmc/articles/PMC8862588/ /pubmed/35193519 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12870-022-03466-3 Text en © The Author(s) 2022 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
spellingShingle Research
Wu, Yuan-Mi
Shen, Xue-Li
Tong, Ling
Lei, Feng-Wei
Xia, Xiao-Fei
Mu, Xian-Yun
Zhang, Zhi-Xiang
Reproductive biology of an endangered lithophytic shrub and implications for its conservation
title Reproductive biology of an endangered lithophytic shrub and implications for its conservation
title_full Reproductive biology of an endangered lithophytic shrub and implications for its conservation
title_fullStr Reproductive biology of an endangered lithophytic shrub and implications for its conservation
title_full_unstemmed Reproductive biology of an endangered lithophytic shrub and implications for its conservation
title_short Reproductive biology of an endangered lithophytic shrub and implications for its conservation
title_sort reproductive biology of an endangered lithophytic shrub and implications for its conservation
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8862588/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35193519
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12870-022-03466-3
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