The association among herbivory tolerance,ploidy level,and herbivory pressure in <Emphasis Type="Italic">cardamine pratensis</Emphasis> |
| |
Authors: | Elin Boalt Leena Arvanitis Kari Lehtilä Johan Ehrlén |
| |
Institution: | 1.School of Life Sciences,S?dert?rn University,Huddinge,Sweden;2.Department of Botany,Stockholm University,Stockholm,Sweden |
| |
Abstract: | We tested whether differences in ploidy level and previous exposure to herbivory can affect plant tolerance to herbivory.
We conducted a common garden experiment with 12 populations of two ploidy levels of the perennial herb Cardamine
pratensis (five populations of tetraploid ssp. pratensis and seven populations of octoploid ssp. paludosa). Earlier studies have shown that attack rates by the main herbivore, the orange tip butterfly Anthocharis cardamines, are lower in populations of octoploids than in populations of tetraploids, and vary among populations. In the common garden
experiment, a combination of natural and artificial damage significantly reduced seed and flower production. We measured tolerance
based on four plant-performance metrics: survival, growth, seed production and clonal reproduction. For three of these measurements,
tolerance of damage did not differ between ploidy levels. For clonal reproduction, the octoploids had a higher tolerance than
the tetraploids, although they experience lower herbivore attack rates in natural populations. Populations from sites with
high levels of herbivory had higher tolerance, measured by seed production, than populations with low levels of herbivory.
We did not detect any significant costs of tolerance. We conclude that high intensity of herbivory has selected for high tolerance
measured by seed production in C. pratensis. |
| |
Keywords: | |
本文献已被 SpringerLink 等数据库收录! |
|