2005/03/01 by Ling Zhang, Spencer C. H. Barrett, Jiang‐Yun Gao +5 · 2 citations
Agricultural and Biological Sciences · Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · #Plant and animal studies #Plant Reproductive Biology #Plant Parasitism and Resistance #Biology #Selfing #Pollination #Pollinator #Botany #Bract #Pollen #Mating system #Ovule #Inflorescence #Mating #Zoology #Population
paper · pdf · doi:10.3732/ajb.92.3.517
openalex publication_date 2005/03/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/21
Tacca, a genus of tropical herbs, possesses near black flowers, conspicuous involucral bracts and whisker-like filiform bracteoles. These features have been assumed to function as a "deceit syndrome" in which reproductive structures resemble decaying organic material attracting flies that facilitate cross-pollination (sapromyiophily). We investigated pollination and mating in Tacca chantrieri populations from SW China to evaluate this assumption. Contrary to this expectation, populations were highly selfing. Pollinator visitation was infrequent and bagged flowers set abundant seed. Pollen loads on stigmas indicated autonomous self-pollination, some of which occurred prior to flower opening. The seed set of inflorescences with bracts and bracteoles removed was not significantly different from unmanipulated inflorescences, suggesting that these structures play a limited role in pollinator attraction, at least at our study sites. Pollen : ovule ratios averaged 49, a value expected in a highly selfing species. Selfing rates estimated in four populations using allozyme markers averaged 0.86 (range 0.76-0.94), thus corroborating this inference. Our results indicate that despite considerable investment in extravagant display, populations of T. chantrieri are highly selfing. We propose several hypotheses to resolve this paradox and argue that future studies of pollination syndromes would benefit by investigation of both pollination and mating biology.