Abstract

The maintenance of mixed mating was studied in Shorea curtisii, a dominant and widely distributed dipterocarp species in Southeast Asia. Paternity and hierarchical Bayesian analyses were used to estimate the parameters of pollen dispersal kernel, male fecundity and self-pollen affinity. We hypothesized that partial self incompatibility and/or inbreeding depression reduce the number of selfed seeds if the mother trees receive sufficient pollen, whereas reproductive assurance increases the numbers of selfed seeds under low amounts of pollen. Comparison of estimated parameters of self-pollen affinity between high density undisturbed and low density selectively logged forests indicated that self-pollen was selectively excluded from mating in the former, probably due to partial self incompatibility or inbreeding depression until seed maturation. By estimating the self-pollen affinity of each mother tree in both forests, mother trees with higher amount of self-pollen indicated significance of self-pollen affinity with negative estimated value. The exclusion of self-fertilization and/or inbreeding depression during seed maturation occurred in the mother trees with large female fecundity, whereas reproductive assurance increased self-fertilization in the mother trees with lower female fecundity.

Highlights

  • Mixed mating, in which hermaphrodite plant species reproduce by self- and cross-fertilization, has been observed in nearly half of the animal-pollinated plant species [1]

  • Lande and Schemske [4] predicted just two stable endpoints of mating system evolution: predominant outcrossing with strong inbreeding depression and predominant selfing with weak inbreeding depression

  • High polymorphic levels were detected in both plots (0.691 and 0.657 of PIC (Polymorphic Information Contents) values in the undisturbed plot and the logged plot, respectively), which were associated with the markers, resulting in a high total exclusion probability for identifying the second parents of offspring in the paternity analyses (0.999756 and 0.999379 in the undisturbed plot and the logged plot, respectively)

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Summary

Introduction

In which hermaphrodite plant species reproduce by self- and cross-fertilization, has been observed in nearly half of the animal-pollinated plant species [1]. E.g., caused by the lack of mates or pollinators, is one of the main forces driving the evolution of autonomous self-fertilization because autogamous seeds provide reproductive assurance [16,17,18]. Pollen discounting is the reduction of male reproductive success by outcrossing, that may lead to increased selfing rate, due to the decrease in the amount of exported pollen [19,20,21,22,23]. The level of mixed mating, in other words stable selfing rates, was regulated by inbreeding depression and pollen limitation (combined with pollen discounting) using a theoretical model [23]. We attempted to simultaneously estimate the parameters of pollen dispersal and male fecundity, together with inbreeding depression, for a mixed mating tropical forest species, in order to identify the conditions of maintaining self-fertilization

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