Fitness consequences of pollen movement and its dependence on spatiotemporal isolation: Field studies in Echinacea angustifolia
2023-06
Loading...
View/Download File
Persistent link to this item
Statistics
View StatisticsJournal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Title
Fitness consequences of pollen movement and its dependence on spatiotemporal isolation: Field studies in Echinacea angustifolia
Authors
Published Date
2023-06
Publisher
Type
Thesis or Dissertation
Abstract
Habitat destruction leads to not only local extinction, but often increases isolation within and among the populations that remain. Plants, being sessile, are susceptible to reproductive failure due to isolation from mates, which can further compromise population persistence. However, persistence depends not only on the production of offspring but also on their survival. Furthermore, the isolation between two plants may correspond to patterns of genetic differentiation, such as relatedness or local adaptation, which can influence the fitness of their offspring. Here, I study how plants’ isolation from potential mates links to both their reproductive rates and offspring fitness. I focus on Echinacea angustifolia, a bee-pollinated perennial forb of the North American tallgrass prairie, which has lost 96-99% of its extent over the past 180 years. I expand upon previous work by considering isolation not only in space (distance to prospective mates) but also in time (overlap in flowering time). In Chapter 1, using ten-year dataset of reproductive success, I found that both spatial isolation and flowering asynchrony reduce reproductive outcomes to a similar degree. In Chapter 2, I assessed how distance between parental plants and their asynchrony of flowering influence the fitness of their offspring, revealing that offspring fitness increases with distance between parents and the difference in their flowering time. In Chapter 3, I evaluated whether isolation from mates has consequences for reproductive fitness after accounting for the precarious transitions between seedling emergence and survival to adulthood. While mate density increased seedling emergence, it had no effect on offspring survival, so its fitness benefits eroded over time. Together these chapters provide an integrative understanding of how pollen movement patterns influence plant fitness, which can inform conservation and management in fragmented landscapes.
Keywords
Description
University of Minnesota Ph.D. dissertation. June 2023. Major: Ecology, Evolution and Behavior. Advisor: Ruth Shaw. 1 computer file (PDF); xi, 134 pages.
Related to
Replaces
License
Collections
Series/Report Number
Funding information
Isbn identifier
Doi identifier
Previously Published Citation
Other identifiers
Suggested citation
Waananen, Amy. (2023). Fitness consequences of pollen movement and its dependence on spatiotemporal isolation: Field studies in Echinacea angustifolia. Retrieved from the University Digital Conservancy, https://hdl.handle.net/11299/257036.
Content distributed via the University Digital Conservancy may be subject to additional license and use restrictions applied by the depositor. By using these files, users agree to the Terms of Use. Materials in the UDC may contain content that is disturbing and/or harmful. For more information, please see our statement on harmful content in digital repositories.