Floral display size and spatial distribution of potential mates affect pollen deposition and female reproductive success in distylous Pulmonaria officinalis (Boraginaceae).

In animal-pollinated plants, both the spatial distribution of flowering individuals and the number of flowers that an individual displays affect pollen deposition rates and female reproductive success. Heterostylous species are likely to be particularly sensitive to the contingencies of spatial distribution, as they are reproductively subdivided into distinct mating groups, which usually exhibit self- and intra-morph incompatibility and differ in floral morphology. In this paper, we explore the joint effects of both spatial distribution of potential mates and floral display size on morph-specific pollen deposition rates and seed set patterns in two natural populations of Pulmonaria officinalis, a distylous species with a weak self-incompatibility system. Both total stigmatic pollen load and the proportion of legitimate pollen decreased with increasing spatial isolation. Legitimate (intermorph) pollen transfer was, however, asymmetric and decreased more rapidly with decreasing proximity to a compatible legitimate mating partner in the S-morph than in the L-morph. Total stigmatic pollen loads per flower increased with increasing floral display size, indicating that large plants are disproportionately more visited than smaller individuals. However, because legitimate pollen deposition decreased with increasing floral display size, these results also suggest that larger numbers of flowers increase the degree of geitonogamous pollination. In both the L- and S-morph, seed set significantly decreased with increasing isolation from a legitimate mating partner, but in the L-morph seed set was less dependent on the spatial distribution of the S-morph. In addition, seed set significantly increased with floral display size in the L-morph, but not in the S-morph. These findings indicate that the spatial distribution of potential mates and variation in floral display size may cause morph-specific differences in pollen deposition rates and female reproductive success.

Photoprotective implications of leaf variegation in E. dens-canis L. and P. officinalis L.

Variegated leaves occur rarely in nature, but there are some species, primarily in the forest understory, that possess this characteristic. We recently studied two variegated plants: Erytronium dens-canis L., which is characterised by a pattern of red patches and Pulmonaria officinalis L., with light green spots. These non-green areas could attenuate light reaching mesophyll cells with respect to green sections. The aim of the study was to verify whether such red and light green parts are more photoprotected than green ones and if this trait could be of adaptive value. Red patches in E. dens-canis were due to a single layer of red cells in the upper parenchyma, which accumulated anthocyanins. Light green spots in P. officinalis were caused by the presence of loosely arranged cells instead of a well-established layer of packed cells in the palisade parenchyma. Chlorophyll fluorescence imaging was performed under light treatment, showing a greater decrease of photochemical efficiency in red and light green patches than in green sections. Differences in the extent of photochemical efficiency among patches were not attributable to different activation of the xanthophyll cycle. These observations failed to confirm our initial hypothesis, but they questioned the physiological reason for this higher sensitivity in red and light green patches of photosynthetic tissues. Chlorophyll fluorescence imaging was therefore performed in the field. The same pattern of photochemical efficiency was maintained only in E. dens-canis. The current results demonstrate that in both species the benefits of variegation, if any, are different from enhanced photosynthetic performance.