Impact of floral herbivory by <Emphasis Type="Italic">Coleotechnites eryngiella</Emphasis> Bottimer (Lepidoptera: Gelechiidae) on the reproductive output of <Emphasis Type="Italic">Eryngium yuccifolium</Emphasis> Michaux (Apiaceae): a test of the reserve ovary model |
| |
Authors: | Clark A Danderson Brenda Molano-Flores S Raghu |
| |
Institution: | (1) Department of Plant Biology, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL 61801, USA;(2) Illinois Natural History Survey, Champaign, 61820, USA;(3) School of Natural Resource Sciences, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia |
| |
Abstract: | The reserve ovary model is a key hypothesis proposed to explain why plants produce surplus flowers and posits that plants may utilize surplus flowers
to compensate for losses from floral herbivory. We tested this hypothesis in the prairie plant Eryngium yuccifolium and its floral herbivore Coleotechnites eryngiella. At five Illinois tallgrass prairie sites, we collected central, primary lateral, and secondary lateral inflorescences from
E. yuccifolium to determine whether damage by the larvae of C. eryngiella to the flowers in earlier developing inflorescences would be compensated for in later developing inflorescences. Coleotechnites eryngiella does extensive damage to the central and primary inflorescences and little damage to the secondary inflorescences. Later
maturing inflorescences did not compensate for early damage by increasing seed production in later inflorescences. The secondary
inflorescences of E. yuccifolium may only compensate for catastrophic damage done to the central and primary inflorescences early on in development, serve
as additional advertisements for pollinators, act as pollen donors, or allow the plant to take advantage of “ecological windows”
of high pollinator and low herbivore abundance. Our findings were spatially and temporally consistent and did not support
the predictions of the reserve ovary model in the E. yuccifolium–C. eryngiella system suggesting that in this system, alternate, proximate, and ultimate causes need to be explored for the production of
surplus flowers. |
| |
Keywords: | Compensation Path analysis Plant– herbivore interactions Reproductive ecology |
本文献已被 SpringerLink 等数据库收录! |
|