Journal
AMERICAN JOURNAL OF BOTANY
Volume 96, Issue 12, Pages 2270-2278Publisher
WILEY
DOI: 10.3732/ajb.0900026
Keywords
breeding system; Cactaceae; Caribbean columnar cactus; floral traits; Harrisia portoricensis; Mona Island; pollination biology; seed germination
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Funding
- NSF-CREST [HRD-0206200, HRD 0734826]
- Center for Applied Tropical Ecology and Conservation of the University of Puerto Rico (CATEC)
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Traits associated with self-pollination are common features of island plant communities. In this work, we studied the pollination biology and the breeding system of Harrisia portoricensis, an island columnar cactus, to test for the presence of inbreeding and inbreeding depression. For H. portoricensis, which bears flowers with typical outcrossing morphology, the results from 322 h of direct observations and videotaping showed that visits to flowers by animals were uncommon. Controlled pollinations demonstrated that H. portoricensis has a partially self-compatible breeding system that it is not autogamous and thus requires an external mechanism for the movement of pollen to set fruit. We detected differences in seed size, seed mass, germination success, and multiplicative fitness estimates between self- and cross-pollination treatments. We found that progeny resulting from natural and self-pollination treatments showed signs of inbreeding depression compared with progeny resulting from cross-pollination; however, the magnitude of the inbreeding depression was less than 50%. Our combined results suggest that for this species an endogamous breeding system should be favored by natural selection.
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