Reproductive Biology of Palicourea fendleri and P. petiolaris (Rubiaceae), Heterostylous Shrubs of a Tropical Cloud Forest in Venezuela

Palicourea fendleri and P. petiolaris (Rubiaceae) are sympatric, distylous tropical shrubs of cloud forest habitats in Venezuela; the former is strongly self-incompatible and the two floral morphs occur in a 1.1 ratio in natural populations. Palicourea petiolaris exhibits different levels of self-co...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Biotropica 1983-09, Vol.15 (3), p.161-169
Main Authors: Sobrevila, Claudia, Ramirez, Nelson, de Enrech, Nereida Xena
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animal and plant ecology
Animal, plant and microbial ecology
Biological and medical sciences
Biological evolution
Biological taxonomies
Breeding
Cloud forests
Corolla
Demecology
Fruit set
Fruits
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Inflorescences
Plants and fungi
Pollen
Seed set
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Summary:Palicourea fendleri and P. petiolaris (Rubiaceae) are sympatric, distylous tropical shrubs of cloud forest habitats in Venezuela; the former is strongly self-incompatible and the two floral morphs occur in a 1.1 ratio in natural populations. Palicourea petiolaris exhibits different levels of self-compatibility in the different populations studied and deviations toward more pin morphs occur in some populations. In general, where the level of incompatibility is stronger, the population structure is closer to equilibrium. A population at the margin of the geographical range of P. petiolaris is composed of fully self-compatible pin plants. Self-compatibility may have arisen in that population from a mutation resulting in "thrum like" behavior of pollen in long styled plants. Fruit set and seed set of the two species are highly variable among the different populations. For P petiolaris, the population which has the strongest level of self-incompatibility has the lowest fecundity
ISSN:0006-3606
1744-7429
DOI:10.2307/2387824