Despite evidence of pollinator declines from many regions across the globe, the threat this poses to plant populations is not clear because plants can often produce seeds without animal pollinators. Here, we quantify pollinator contribution to seed production by comparing fertility in the presence versus the absence of pollinators for a global dataset of 1174 plant species. We estimate that, without pollinators, a third of flowering plant species would produce no seeds and half would suffer an 80% or more reduction in fertility. Pollinator contribution to plant reproduction is higher in plants with tree growth form, multiple reproductive episodes, more specialized pollination systems, and tropical distributions, making these groups especially vulnerable to reduced service from pollinators. These results suggest that, without mitigating efforts, pollinator declines have the potential to reduce reproduction for most plant species, increasing the risk of population declines.
significantly positively correlated with latitude and temperature seasonality of the populations. In addition, root/shoot ratio and water-use efficiency showed significant variation in plasticity among populations in response to water availability, and plasticities of these two traits were significantly negatively correlated with longitude and positively correlated with precipitation seasonality. The observed geographic clines in plasticity suggest that phenotypic plasticity of S. canadensis may have evolved rapidly in regions with different climatic conditions, and this may have contributed to the spread of this invasive species.
The role of pollination in the success of invasive plants needs to be understood because invasives have substantial effects on species interactions and ecosystem functions. Previous research has shown both that reproduction of invasive plants is often pollen limited and that invasive plants can have high seed production, motivating the questions: How do invasive populations maintain reproductive success in spite of pollen limitation? What species traits moderate pollen limitation for invaders?We conducted a phylogenetic meta-analysis with 68 invasive, 50 introduced noninvasive and 1931 native plant populations, across 1249 species.We found that invasive populations with generalist pollination or pollinator dependence were less pollen limited than natives, but invasives and introduced noninvasives did not differ. Invasive species produced 39 fewer ovules/flower and > 2509 more flowers per plant, compared with their native relatives. While these traits were negatively correlated, consistent with a tradeoff, this did not differ with invasion status.Invasive plants that produce many flowers and have floral generalisation are able to compensate for or avoid pollen limitation, potentially helping to explain the invaders' reproductive successes.
To assess changes of metabolite content and regulation mechanism of the phenolic acid biosynthesis pathway at different developmental stages of leaves, this study performed a combined metabolome and transcriptome analysis of Cyclocarya paliurus leaves at different developmental stages. Metabolite and transcript profiling were conducted by ultra-performance liquid chromatography quadrupole time-of-flight tandem mass spectrometer and high-throughput RNA sequencing, respectively. Transcriptome identification showed that 58 genes were involved in the biosynthesis of phenolic acid. Among them, 10 differentially expressed genes were detected between every two developmental stages. Identification and quantification of metabolites indicated that 14 metabolites were located in the phenolic acid biosynthetic pathway. Among them, eight differentially accumulated metabolites were detected between every two developmental stages. Association analysis between metabolome and transcriptome showed that six differentially expressed structural genes were significantly positively correlated with metabolite accumulation and showed similar expression trends. A total of 128 transcription factors were identified that may be involved in the regulation of phenolic acid biosynthesis; these include 12 MYBs and 10 basic helix–loop–helix (bHLH) transcription factors. A regulatory network of the phenolic acid biosynthesis was established to visualize differentially expressed candidate genes that are involved in the accumulation of metabolites with significant differences. The results of this study contribute to the further understanding of phenolic acid biosynthesis during the development of leaves of C. paliurus.
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