| 51. |
- Bisang, Irene, et al.
(författare)
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Life-history characteristics and historical factors are important to explain regional variation in reproductive traits and genetic diversity in perennial mosses
- 2023
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Ingår i: Annals of Botany. - : Oxford University Press (OUP). - 0305-7364 .- 1095-8290.
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background and Aims Plants have evolved an unrivalled diversity of reproductive strategies, including variation in the degree of sexual vs. clonal reproduction. This variation has important effects on the dynamics and genetic structure of populations. We examined the association between large-scale variation in reproductive patterns and intraspecific genetic diversity in two moss species where sex is manifested in the dominant haploid generation and sex expression is irregular. We predicted that in regions with more frequent realized sexual reproduction, populations should display less skewed sex ratios, should more often express sex and should have higher genetic diversity than in regions with largely clonal reproduction.Methods We assessed reproductive status and phenotypic sex in the dioicous long-lived Drepanocladus trifarius and D. turgescens, in 248 and 438 samples across two regions in Scandinavia with frequent or rare realized sexual reproduction, respectively. In subsets of the samples, we analysed genetic diversity using nuclear and plastid sequence information and identified sex with a sex-specific molecular marker in non-reproductive samples.Key Results Contrary to our predictions, sex ratios did not differ between regions; genetic diversity did not differ in D. trifarius and it was higher in the region with rare sexual reproduction in D. turgescens. Supporting our predictions, relatively more samples expressed sex in D. trifarius in the region with frequent sexual reproduction. Overall, samples were mostly female. The degree of sex expression and genetic diversity differed between sexes.Conclusions Sex expression levels, regional sex ratios and genetic diversity were not directly associated with the regional frequency of realized sexual reproduction, and relationships and variation patterns differed between species. We conclude that a combination of species-specific life histories, such as longevity, overall degree of successful sexual reproduction and recruitment, and historical factors are important to explain this variation. Our data on haploid-dominated plants significantly complement plant reproductive biology.
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| 52. |
- Bisang, Irene, et al.
(författare)
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No evidence of sexual niche partitioning in a dioecious moss with raresexual reproduction
- 2015
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Ingår i: Annals of Botany. - : Oxford University Press (OUP). - 0305-7364 .- 1095-8290.
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background and Aims. Roughly half of the species of bryophytes have separate sexes (dioecious) and half are hermaphroditic (monoecious). This variation has major consequences for the ecology and evolution of the different species. In some sexually reproducing dioecious bryophytes, sex ratio has been shown to vary with environmental conditions. This study focuses on the dioecious wetland moss Drepanocladus trifarius, which rarely produces sexual branches or sporophytes and lacks apparent secondary sex characteristics, and examines whether genetic sexes exhibit different habitat preferences, i.e. whether sexual niche partitioning occurs.Methods. A total of 277 shoots of D. trifarius were randomly sampled at 214 locations and 12 environmental factors were quantified at each site. Sex was assigned to the individual shoots collected in the natural environments, regardless of their reproductive status, using a specifically designed molecular marker associated with female sex.Key Results. Male and female shoots did not differ in shoot biomass, the sexes were randomly distributed with respect to each other, and environmental conditions at male and female sampling locations did not differ. Collectively, this demonstrates a lack of sexual niche segregation. Adult genetic sex ratio was female-biased, with 28 females for every male individual.Conclusions. The results show that although the sexes of D. trifarius did not differ with regard to annual growth, spatial distribution or habitat requirements, the genetic sex ratio as nevertheless significantly female-biased. This supports the notion that factors other than sex-related differences in reproductive costs and sexual dimorphism can also drive the evolution of biased sex ratios in plants
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| 53. |
- Bisang, Irene, et al.
(författare)
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Sex expression and genotypic sex ratio vary with region and environment in the wetland moss Drepanocladus lycopodioides
- 2020
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Ingår i: Botanical journal of the Linnean Society. - : Oxford University Press (OUP). - 0024-4074 .- 1095-8339. ; 192:2, s. 421-434
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Sex ratio variation is common among organisms with separate sexes. In bryophytes, sex chromosome segregation at meiosis suggests a balanced progeny sex ratio. However, most bryophyte populations exhibit female-biased phenotypic sex ratios based on the presence of reproductive structures on gametophytes. Many bryophyte populations do not form sexual organs, and genotypic sex ratio variation in such populations is mostly unknown. We tested sex expression, and phenotypic and genotypic sex ratios against environmental parameters in natural populations of the unisexual wetland moss Drepanocladus lycopodiodes at 11 sites in each of three regions in southern Sweden. We identified sex in 660 individual ramets, based on sexual structures, when present, or with a specifically designed molecular marker, when absent. All regions exhibited a female bias in phenotypic and genotypic sex ratios. Sex ratio biases and sex expression differed between regions. Sex ratios were less female-biased in larger patches. Wetter patches exhibited a stronger female bias in genotypic sex ratio and lower sex expression. This is the first evidence of environmental effects on genotypic sex ratio in mosses. A higher frequency of females in wet patches could be due to higher female resource demands for sporophyte production or higher male sensitivity to wetness. A higher incidence of females than males in moister sites aligns with female flowering plants, but differs from reproductive bryophytes in drier environments. Taken together with previous results, our data indicate that sex ratio variation and its drivers differ among species, their life histories and environments.
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| 54. |
- Boalt, Elin, 1976-
(författare)
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Ecology and evolution of tolerance in two cruciferous species
- 2008
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt)abstract
- Tolerance to herbivory is the ability of plants to maintain fitness in spite of damage. The goal of this thesis is to investigate the genetic variation and expression of tolerance within species, determine whether and in what conditions tolerance has negative side-effects, and how tolerance is affected by different ecological factors. Tolerance is investigated with special focus on the effects of different damage types, competitive regimes, history of herbivory, and polyploidization in plants. Studies are conducted as a literature review and three experiments on two cruciferous species Raphanus raphanistrum and Cardamine pratensis.In the tolerance experiments, plants are subjected to artificial damage solely, or in a combination with natural damage. A literature review was conducted in order to investigate the effects of damage method. We found that traits related to tolerance, such as growth and fitness were not as sensitive in regard to damage method as measures of induced chemical traits, or measures of secondary herbivory.Genetic variation of tolerance was demonstrated within populations of R. raphanistrum and between subspecies of C. pratensis. In R. raphanistrum, traits involved in floral display and male fitness were positively associated with plant tolerance to herbivore damage. A potential cost of tolerance was demonstrated as a negative correlation between levels of tolerance in high and low competitive regimes. I found no evidence of other proposed costs of tolerance in terms of highly tolerant plants suffering of reduced fitness in the absence of herbivores or trade-offs in terms of a negative association between tolerance to apical and leaf damage, or between tolerance and competitive ability. In C. pratensis, higher ploidy level in plants involved higher levels of tolerance measured as clonal reproduction. Furthermore, populations exposed to higher levels of herbivory had better tolerance than populations exposed to lower levels of herbivory. In this thesis, I demonstrate evidence of different components for the evolution of tolerance in plants: genotypic variation, selective factors in terms of costs and ploidization, and selective agents in terms of changing environment or herbivore pressure.
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| 55. |
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| 56. |
- Boalt, Elin, et al.
(författare)
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The association among herbivory tolerance, ploidy level, and herbivory pressure in cardamine pratensis
- 2010
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Ingår i: Evolutionary Ecology. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0269-7653 .- 1573-8477. ; 24:5, s. 1101-1113
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We tested whether differences in ploidy level and previous exposure to herbivory can affect plant tolerance to herbivory. We conducted a common garden experiment with 12 populations of two ploidy levels of the perennial herb Cardamine pratensis (five populations of tetraploid ssp. pratensis and seven populations of octoploid ssp. paludosa). Earlier studies have shown that attack rates by the main herbivore, the orange tip butterfly Anthocharis cardamines, are lower in populations of octoploids than in populations of tetraploids, and vary among populations. In the common garden experiment, a combination of natural and artificial damage significantly reduced seed and flower production. We measured tolerance based on four plant-performance metrics: survival, growth, seed production and clonal reproduction. For three of these measurements, tolerance of damage did not differ between ploidy levels. For clonal reproduction, the octoploids had a higher tolerance than the tetraploids, although they experience lower herbivore attack rates in natural populations. Populations from sites with high levels of herbivory had higher tolerance, measured by seed production, than populations with low levels of herbivory. We did not detect any significant costs of tolerance. We conclude that high intensity of herbivory has selected for high tolerance measured by seed production in C. pratensis.
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| 57. |
- Bolinder, Kristina, et al.
(författare)
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From near extinction to diversification by means of ashift in pollination mechanism in the gymnosperm relict Ephedra (Ephedraceae, Gnetales)
- 2016
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Ingår i: Botanical journal of the Linnean Society. - : Oxford University Press (OUP). - 0024-4074 .- 1095-8339. ; 180:4, s. 461-477
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Pollination in gymnosperms is usually accomplished by means of wind, but some groups are insect-pollinated. We show that wind and insect pollination occur in the morphologically uniform genus Ephedra (Gnetales). Based on field experiments over several years, we demonstrate distinct differences between two Ephedra species that grow in sympatry in Greece in pollen dispersal and clump formation, insect visitations and embryo formation when insects are denied access to cones. Ephedra distachya, nested in the core clade of Ephedra, is anemophilous, which is probably the prevailing state in Ephedra. Ephedra foeminea, sister to the remaining species of the genus, is entomophilous and pollinated by a range of diurnal and nocturnal insects. The generalist entomophilous system of E.foeminea, with distinct but infrequent insect visitations, is in many respects similar to that reported for Gnetum and Welwitschia and appears ancestral in Gnetales. The Ephedra lineage is well documented already from the Early Cretaceous, but the diversity declined dramatically during the Late Cretaceous, possibly to near extinction around the Cretaceous-Palaeogene boundary. The clade imbalance between insect- and wind-pollinated lineages is larger than expected by chance and the shift in pollination mode may explain why Ephedra escaped extinction and began to diversify again.
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| 58. |
- Bolinder, Kristina, 1987-
(författare)
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Pollen and pollination in Ephedra (Gnetales)
- 2017
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt)abstract
- Ephedra (Gnetales) is a gymnosperm genus with a long evolutionary history; the first dispersed pollen grains with affinity to the group are known already from the Permian. This thesis focuses on the evolutionary history of the group and different aspects of its pollination mechanisms. Despite the limited number of extant species of the genus (50-60), and a low morphological and genetic divergence among species, there is variation in pollination syndrome in the genus. The prevailing state in Ephedra, and most gymnosperms, is wind pollination. It is therefore surprising that one species, E. foeminea, is insect-pollinated. Together with co-workers I documented the pollination syndromes of E. foeminea and a sympatric species, E. distachya, based on long term field experiments in north-eastern Greece and aerodynamic investigations and calculations. Placing the results into an evolutionary framework reveals that the insect-pollinated species E. foeminea is sister to the remaining (mostly wind-pollinated) genus, and indicates that insect pollination is the ancestral state in the Gnetales. During the course of evolution of the group there has been a shift to wind pollination, which may have played a crucial role for the diversification of the crown group in the Paleogene. Pollination biology is often correlated with the morphology of the pollen such that pollen grains of anemophilous plants are small with a smooth surface, whereas pollen grains of entomophilous plants are larger with an ornamented surface and a covering of pollenkitt. The pollen morphology of Ephedra can be broadly divided into two types: an ancestral type with an unbranched pseudosulcus between each pair of plicae, and a derived type with a branched pseudosulcus between each pair of plicae. Further, the pollen morphology and ultrastructure of the pollen wall in Ephedra are to some degree correlated with the pollination syndrome and capability of long distance dispersal. Pollen of E. foeminea has a denser ultrastructure, as a result a higher settling velocity and is therefore capable of flying shorter distances than does pollen of the anemophilous E. distachya, and other investigated anemophilous species that show a more spacious ultrastructure of the pollen grain. These results can be useful in the reconstruction of the pollination mechanism of extinct taxa of the Ephedra-lineage in the future.
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| 59. |
- Buckley, Yvonne M., et al.
(författare)
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Causes and consequences of variation in plant population growth rate : a synthesis of matrix population models in a phylogenetic context
- 2010
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Ingår i: Ecology Letters. - : Wiley. - 1461-023X .- 1461-0248. ; 13:9, s. 1182-1197
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Forskningsöversikt (refereegranskat)abstract
- Explaining variation in population growth rates is fundamental to predicting population dynamics and population responses to environmental change. In this study, we used matrix population models, which link birth, growth and survival to population growth rate, to examine how and why population growth rates vary within and among 50 terrestrial plant species. Population growth rates were more similar within species than among species; with phylogeny having a minimal influence on among-species variation. Most population growth rates decreased over the observation period and were negatively autocorrelated between years; that is, higher than average population growth rates tended to be followed by lower than average population growth rates. Population growth rates varied more through time than space; this temporal variation was due mostly to variation in post-seedling survival and for a subset of species was partly explained by response to environmental factors, such as fire and herbivory. Stochastic population growth rates departed from mean matrix population growth rate for temporally autocorrelated environments. Our findings indicate that demographic data and models of closely related plant species cannot necessarily be used to make recommendations for conservation or control, and that post-seedling survival and the sequence of environmental conditions are critical for determining plant population growth rate.
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| 60. |
- Burns, Jean H., et al.
(författare)
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Empirical tests of life-history evolution theory using phylogenetic analysis of plant demography
- 2010
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Ingår i: Journal of Ecology. - : Wiley. - 0022-0477 .- 1365-2745. ; 98:2, s. 334-344
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- 1. A primary goal of evolutionary ecology is to understand factors selecting for the diversity of life histories. Life-history components, such as time-to-reproduction, adult survivorship and fecundity, might differ among species because of variation in direct and indirect benefits of these life histories in different environments or might have lower-than-expected variability because of phylogenetic constraints. Here, we present a phylogenetic examination of demography and life histories using a data base of 204 terrestrial plant species. 2. Overall, statistical models without phylogeny were preferred to models with phylogeny for vital rates and elasticities, suggesting that they lacked phylogenetic signal and are evolutionarily labile. However, the effect of phylogeny was significant in models including sensitivities, suggesting that sensitivities exhibit greater phylogenetic signal than vital rates or elasticities. 3. Species with a greater age at first reproduction had lower fecundity, consistent with a cost of delayed reproduction, but only in some habitats (e.g. grassland). We found no evidence for an indirect benefit of delayed reproduction via a decrease in variation in fecundity with age to first reproduction. 4. The greater sensitivity and lower variation in survival than in fecundity was consistent with buffering of more important vital rates, as others have also found. This suggests that studies of life-history evolution should include survival, rather than only fecundity, for the majority of species. 5. Synthesis. Demographic matrix models can provide informative tests of life-history theory because of their shared construction and outputs and their widespread use among plant ecologists. Our comparative analysis suggested that there is a cost of delayed reproduction and that more important vital rates exhibit lower variability. The absolute importance of vital rates to population growth rates (sensitivities) exhibited phylogenetic signal, suggesting that a thorough understanding of life-history evolution might require an understanding of the importance of vital rates, not just their means, and the role of phylogenetic history.
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