Abstract
Flowering phenology and synchrony with biotic and abiotic resources are crucial traits determining the reproductive success in insect-pollinated plants. In seasonal climates, plants flowering for long periods should assure reproductive success when resources are more predictable. In this work, we evaluated the relationship between flowering phenology and synchrony and reproductive success in Hypericum balearicum, a shrub flowering all year round but mainly during spring and summer. We studied two contrasting localities (differing mostly in rainfall) during 3 years, and at different biological scales spanning from localities to individual flowers and fruits. We first monitored (monthly) flowering phenology and reproductive success (fruit and seed set) of plants, and assessed whether in the locality with higher rainfall plants had longer flowering phenology and synchrony and relatively higher reproductive success within or outside the flowering peak. Secondly, we censused pollinators on H. balearicum individuals and measured reproductive success along the flowering peak of each locality to test for an association between (i) richness and abundance of pollinators and (ii) fruit and seed set, and seed weight. We found that most flowers (∼90 %) and the highest fruit set (∼70 %) were produced during the flowering peak of each locality. Contrary to expectations, plants in the locality with lower rainfall showed more relaxed flowering phenology and synchrony and set more fruits outside the flowering peak. During the flowering peak of each locality, the reproductive success of early-flowering individuals depended on a combination of both pollinator richness and abundance and rainfall; by contrast, reproductive success of late-flowering individuals was most dependent on rainfall. Plant species flowering for long periods in seasonal climates, thus, appear to be ideal organisms to understand how flowering phenology and synchrony match with biotic and abiotic resources, and how this ultimately influences plant reproductive success.
Highlights
Flowering phenology, or the period of time when plant species flower, determines the season when reproductive structures interact with resources for fruit and seed development (Primack 1985; Rathcke and Lacey 1985)
We evaluated the relationship between flowering phenology and synchrony and reproductive success in Hypericum balearicum, a shrub flowering all year round but mainly during spring and summer
Plant species flowering for long periods in seasonal climates, appear to be ideal organisms to understand how flowering phenology and synchrony match with biotic and abiotic resources, and how this influences plant reproductive success
Summary
The period of time when plant species flower, determines the season when reproductive structures interact with resources for fruit and seed development (Primack 1985; Rathcke and Lacey 1985). If environmental conditions remained uniform and predictable, species could flower longer (Rathcke and Lacey 1985; Marquis 1988), showing weak selection on flowering phenology (Mungıa-Rosas et al 2011). The context dependence of abiotic and biotic conditions imposes inconsistent trends on flowering phenology and synchrony in plant populations (Parra-Tabla and Vargas 2007), making phenological traits difficult to predict (Mungıa-Rosas et al 2011). It is necessary to decompose the relative effects of biotic and abiotic conditions on flowering traits, with the aim to improve our understanding of the patterns of phenotypic selection on flowering phenology (Mungıa-Rosas et al 2011)
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