School of Plant Sciences and Food Security, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel.
School of Public Health; Porter School of the Environment and Earth Sciences, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel.
Sci Rep. 2019 Apr 19;9(1):6299. doi: 10.1038/s41598-019-42158-1.
Theory predicts that less fit individuals would disperse more often than fitter ones (Fitness Associated Dispersal, FAD hypothesis). To test this prediction under laboratory conditions, an entire life cycle of Lamium amplexicaule plants and the preferences of its dispersal agent, Messor ebeninus ants, were tracked. Characterization of individual L. amplexicaule plant revealed high variability in spot cover on the surface of the seeds, where less fit plants produce "unspotted seeds" (see Fig. 1 in Introduction). Unspotted L. amplexicaule seeds showed higher variation in germination time and lower germination rate. Moreover, M. ebeninus ants preferably collected these unspotted seeds. Our results show that low fitness L. amplexicaule plants produce seeds with higher potential for dispersal, supporting the FAD hypothesis in a plant-animal system.
理论预测，适应能力较差的个体比适应能力较强的个体更频繁地扩散（适应相关扩散，FAD 假说）。为了在实验室条件下检验这一预测，我们跟踪了整个 Lamium amplexicaule 植物的生命周期及其扩散剂 Messor ebeninus 蚂蚁的偏好。对个体 L. amplexicaule 植物的特征分析表明，种子表面的斑点覆盖存在高度的可变性，适应能力较差的植物会产生“无斑点种子”（如图 1 所示）。无斑点的 L. amplexicaule 种子在发芽时间和发芽率上表现出更高的变化。此外，M. ebeninus 蚂蚁更喜欢收集这些无斑点的种子。我们的结果表明，适应能力较差的 L. amplexicaule 植物产生的种子具有更高的扩散潜力，这支持了植物-动物系统中的 FAD 假说。
