Abstract
Variation in size may influence the abundance of visitors and reproductive allocation for cushion plants in the extreme alpine environments. To assess effects of plant size on the abundance of main visitors and reproductive allocation in Thylacospermum caespitosum populations at two altitudes, the abundance of the visitors, visiting frequency, total number of flowers, number of fruits, number of unseeded flowers, and reproductive allocation were investigated during the period of reproductive growth. Concurrently, the effects of plant size on the visitors' contributions to fruit setting rate were assessed by a bagging experiment. Our results showed that flies (Musca domestica and Dasyphora asiatica) were the main pollinating insects of T. caespitosum, and they could obvious facilitate (p < 0.05) the fruit setting rate of this cushion plant. Seed set and floral visitation were significantly influenced (p < 0.001) by plant size. Moreover, the reproductive allocation and fruit setting rate of T. caespitosum was influenced (p < 0.001) by plant size. More biomass was allocated to reproduction in plants of greater diameter. There is an increase in reproductive success (increases of fruit number with increase in plant size) in relation to plant size. In conclusion, the extent of M. domestica and D. asiatica to facilitate the fruit setting rate mainly depended on the size of T. caespitosum. Size‐dependent reproductive allocation occurred in T. caespitosum and was the chief factor affecting the contribution of flies to fruit setting rate. These traits reflect reproductive fitness of T. caespitosum related to plant size in extreme alpine environments.
Highlights
Similar results were observed in the high altitude population. These results indicated that the size of T. caespitosum was one of the most important factors influenc‐ ing the number of flies and visited flowers
Our results indi‐ cated that flies were the major visiting insects for T. caespitosum, and they may promote fruit setting of this cushion plant
Fontaine, Villemant, and Daugeron (2014) indicated that flies widely replaced bees as the main flower visitors in a subalpine meadow in the French Alps, and among them the Empidinae might play a key role in pol‐ lination
Summary
We evaluated the effects of plant size on the abundance of the main visitors, visiting frequency, total number of flowers, number of fruits, number of unseeded flowers, reproductive biomass ratio, stem‐leaf biomass ratio, root biomass ratio, and fruit setting rate. To test the effect of plant size on abundance of main visitors and reproductive allocation, all parameters (number of flies, visit‐ ing frequency, total number of flowers, number of fruits, number of unseeded flowers, flower weight ratio, stem‐leaf weight ratio, root weight ratio, fruit setting rate, and RIIvisitor) were, respectively, evalu‐ ated by the generalized linear mixed model (GLMM), where plant number and population were random factors and plant size was fixed factor.
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