Effect of elevated temperature on the rate of flowering anthesis and seed set in Olea ferruginea

Abstract

Plant reproduction and climate are strongly correlated with each other in various aspects, as climate change is the main cause of biotic and abiotic stresses, which adversely affect plant reproductive biology. We conducted a field experiment over two consecutive years to record how warming temperature affects flowering anthesis within inflorescence and the relationship between the flowers with anther dehiscence before anthesis (ADBA) and fruit set with maximum and minimum temperature in Olea ferruginea. The results of linear regression analysis show that there is increase in the rate of ADBA by 0.846 times per unit increase in maximum temperature and 0.789% per unit increase in minimum temperature. Also, there is decrease in fruit set by 0.933% and 0.743% when compared with maximum and minimum temperature respectively. The fruit set was found to be decreased by 0.81% when flowers undergo ADBA. Since the species is self-incompatible, cross pollination and pollen germination becomes impossible after anthesis due to the presence of self-pollen on the stigmatic surface. Our study results suggest that temperature fluctuations could affect rate of anthesis in flowering and reduce seed production under higher temperature. Thus, the impacts of climate extremes on plant life cycles may be as influential as gradual warming. In particular, it appears that throughout the anthropocene, temperature regime fluctuation had a bigger impact on flowering dynamics.