| Abstract: | The modular morphology of plants has important consequences for reproductive strategies. Ovules are packaged in discrete structures (flowers) that usually vary stochastically in pollen capture and ovule fertilization, because of the vagaries of pollen transfer by external agents. Different ovule packaging schemes may use limited reproductive resources more or less effectively, so that some number of ovules per flower may be optimal, given the prevailing probabilities of ovule fertilization. I derive a phenotypic model for ovule number per flower that maximizes the expected total ovule fertilizations on a plant when pollination and fertilization vary randomly among individual flowers. This model predicts that, except for small or inexpensive flowers, ovules should be “oversupplied” relative to the mean receipt of pollen tubes, so that pollen limitation of seed set should be common. Published data are congruent with this prediction. Additional hypotheses on the relation of ovule packaging to floral cost, plant size, and variance in pollen receipt are suggested by the model, but few data exist to evaluate these hypotheses. |
