Meng Jin-Liu, Zhou Xian-Hui, Zhao Zhi-Gang, Du Guo-Zhen
Key Laboratory of Arid and Grassland Ecology of Ministry of Education at Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730000, China.
J Integr Plant Biol. 2008 Sep;50(9):1161-70. doi: 10.1111/j.1744-7909.2008.00722.x.
Theory predicts that tighter correlation between floral traits and weaker relationship between floral and vegetative traits more likely occur in specialized flowers than generalized flowers, favoring by precise fit with pollinators. However, traits and trait correlations frequently vary under different environments. Through detecting spatiotemporal variation in phenotypic traits (floral organ size and vegetative size) and trait correlations in four Ranunculaceae species, we examined four predictions. Overall, our results supported these predictions to a certain degree. The mean coefficient of variation (CV) of floral traits in two specialized species (Delphinium kamaonense and Aconitum gymnandrum) was marginally significantly lower than that of another two generalized species (Trollius ranunculoides and Anemone obtusiloba). The two specialized species also showed marginally significantly smaller CV in floral traits than vegetative size across the two species. The absolute mean correlation between floral and vegetative traits, or that between floral traits in species with specialized flowers was not significantly lower, or higher than that in generalized plants, weakly supporting the predictions. Furthermore, we documented a large variation in trait correlations of four species among different seasons and populations. Study of covariance of floral and vegetative traits will benefit from the contrast of results obtained from generalized and specialized pollination systems.
理论预测，与泛化花相比，特化花更有可能出现花部性状之间更紧密的相关性以及花部与营养体性状之间更弱的关系，这得益于与传粉者的精确匹配。然而，性状及性状相关性在不同环境下常常会发生变化。通过检测四种毛茛科植物的表型性状（花器官大小和营养体大小）的时空变异以及性状相关性，我们检验了四个预测。总体而言，我们的结果在一定程度上支持了这些预测。两种特化物种（甘青翠雀花和露蕊乌头）花部性状的平均变异系数（CV）略显著低于另外两种泛化物种（毛茛状金莲花和钝裂银莲花）。在这两个物种中，这两种特化物种的花部性状的CV也略显著小于营养体大小。特化花物种中花部与营养体性状之间的绝对平均相关性，或花部性状之间的绝对平均相关性，并不显著低于或高于泛化植物中的相关性，这对预测的支持力度较弱。此外，我们记录了这四个物种在不同季节和种群间性状相关性的巨大差异。花部与营养体性状的协方差研究将受益于泛化和特化传粉系统所得结果的对比。
