Apricot (Prunus armeniaca) pollen morphological characterisation through scanning electron microscopy, using multivariate analysis

Abstract

Pollen grains of 11 Iranian apricot (Prunus armeniaca) cultivars were examined, using scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Pollen was collected in the 2002 growing season from mature apricot trees grown in The Apricot Collection Orchard, Ismailabad Horticultural Research Station, Qazvin, Iran. For SEM evaluation, pollen grains were observed and photographed at 1000× for whole grain and at 10 000× for sectioning of exine pattern (surface topography). The length (L) and the width (W) of grain, L/W ratio, distance between two furrows and the width of ridges in elliptical pollen, and the base, the altitude and the width of grain and ridges in triangular pollen were measured. Substantial variability in the size, shape, and exine patterns among pollen grains was clearly distinguished. The apricot cultivars were easily separated into two groups according to their pollen grain shapes: (1) obtuse-triangular (six cultivars). The pollen grains of all studied apricot cultivars were medium in size: 51.32 × 25.51 µm (length × width) for the elliptical shape, and for the triangular shapes: 39.03 × 31.22 µm (base × altitude). The resultant data from the two types of pollen shapes were analysed using completely randomised design (CRD) with unequal replications. Moreover, multivariate statistical analysis was carried out to distinguish morphometric information from measured parameters of the two pollen grain shapes. The projections of the loadings defined by the first two principal components allowed for the visualisation of the position of apricot cultivars, demonstrating between-cultivar-pollen shape variations. Hence, the differences in both exine pattern and surface topography, in particular ridges and pore characteristics, can potentially be used as a diagnostic tool to aid in the identification of apricot cultivars.

Investigation on the pollen morphology of traditional cultivars of Prunus species in Sicily

“…Our data agreed with those reported by Evrenosoğlu & Misirli [4] for pollen size and for P/E ratio mean value in peach and almond and for the diameter of perforations in almond; concerning the width of muri in peach, moreover, they obtained similar values to those shown by Gilani et al [30]. The average pollen length and width, as well as P/E and the width of muri mean value in P. armeniaca, obtained in our study, are similar to the data observed by Arzani et al [31], while Gilani et al [30] reported similar range value as to DM (distance between muri) and WM. Otherwise, from the observations on almond from Iran reported by Vadafar et al [32], pollen grains of P. dulcis s.l.…”

Ferilization biology and pomological properties of newlyintroduced sweet cherry (Prunus avium L.) cultivars

“…U novije vreme, determinacija više genotipova vrsta roda Prunus na osnovu morfološke karakterizacije polenovih zrna obavljena je kod kajsije (Arzani et al, 2005;Asma, 2008), višnje (Miaja et al, 2000) i badema (Sorkheh et al, 2008). Autori se uglavnom slažu u pogledu ocene da razlike u morfologiji polena i ornamentaciji egzine meĎu sortama voćaka postoje, ali i da ove razlike često nisu velike.…”

“…Oblik polenovih zrna vrsta roda Prunus opisan je kao zarubljen do eliptičan kod badema (Sorkheh et al, 2008), cilindričan kod breskve i šljive (Evrenosoğlu i Misirli, 2009), eliptičan ili zatupljeno-trouglast kod kajsije (Arzani et al, 2005). Odnos dužine i širine polenovih zrna sorti trešnje analiziranih u našem radu, ukazuje na njihov nešto izduženiji oblik (perprolate, Punt et al, 2007), u odnosu na ostale vrste roda Prunus -subprolate (Evrenosoğlu i Misirli, 2009) ili prolate-perprolate kod kajsije (Arzani et al, 2005), prolate-perprolate kod badema (Sorkheh et al, 2008) …”

Pollen Grain Morphological Characteristics Of American Persimmon (Diospyros Virginiana L.)

“…The investigations of the morphological peculiarities of pollen grains from specific genotypes and cultivars are important and useful for taxonomy, phylogeny, palaeobotany, breeding programmes, e.g., pear (Westwood and Challice, 1978), grape (Ahmedullah, 1983), sweet cherry (Miaja et al, 2000), apricot (Arzani et al, 2005), cornelian cherry (Mert, C. 2009), persimmon , hazelnut (Nikolaieva et al, 2014), jujube (Rouhakhsh, et al, 2014), and chestnut (Grygorieva et al, 2015).…”