Biparental inbreeding depression, genetic relatedness and progeny vigour in a wind-pollinated treeline species in Argentina

Abstract

Spatially restricted gene flow and resulting spatial genetic structure are generally considered as being the primary controlling factors in the dynamics of biparental inbreeding depression in a wide range of plant species. However, wind-pollinated angiosperm trees have not been studied adequately in this respect. The present study analyses the relationships among parental genetic similarity, outcrossing distances, progeny vigour and mortality in Polylepis australis (Rosaceae), a wind-pollinated treeline species endemic to Argentina. We investigated whether spatial genetic structuring occurs in anthropogenically fragmented P. australis woodlands of the Córdoba Mountains. We also performed a controlled crossing experiment using pollen collected from different distances. Genetic variability (using RAPD-PCR), vigour (N-metabolism capacity) and mortality of the resulting progeny were contrasted with progeny from unmanipulated flowers. We found a continuous decrease in parental genetic similarity with spatial distance among mates and an increase in N-metabolism capacity in the progeny produced from pollen at increasing distances, as well as a very high mortality of seedlings resulting from short-distance crosses. Additionally, our results suggest that there is still fragment connectivity in P. australis through long-distance pollen-mediated gene flow.