Rare cliffhanging plant species uses unique reproductive strategy

Thursday, September 13, 2012
(A) Topography of the habitat (Sopeira, Spanish Pyrenees), (B) flowering male plant, (C) flowering female plant with a visiting ant (Lasius), (D) male flowers with a visiting ant (Lasius), (E) female plant with two fruits, one at a crevice in the cliff wall (self sowing), (F) seed with elaiosome coating, (G) vial containing seeds in situ?for cafeteria experiments (Experiment I, see Materials and Methods), (H) ant removing a seed (Experiment I), and (I) tuber with old leaf scars marked with a red coloration, each dot corresponds to one year, and a ruler shows its size in mm. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0044657.g001

The Borderea chouardii plant, which is critically endangered and is found only on two adjacent cliff sides in the Pyrenees, employs a unique and risky doubly mutualistic reproductive strategy with local ants, according to research published Sep. 12 in the open access journal PLOS ONE.

The researchers, led by Maria Garcia of the Pyrenean Institute of Ecology (CSIC), found that two ant species acted as the main pollinators for the plant, while a third species dispersed seeds. About a third of the new seedlings censused over 17 years in vertical cliffs would come from such dispersal, while the remaining two thirds from self-sown seeds by the female plants. Such a strategy is risky, because if something were to happen to the local ant species the plant may not be able to continue reproducing, but the authors conclude that it can be successful in this particular case because of the plant's unusually long lifespan, in some cases reaching over 300 years, its climatically stable habitat, and its isolation from large herbivores.

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Garc?a MB, Espadaler X, Olesen JM (2012) Extreme Reproduction and Survival of a True Cliffhanger: The Endangered Plant Borderea chouardii (Dioscoreaceae). PLoS ONE 7(9): e44657. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0044657

Public Library of Science: http://www.plos.org

Thanks to Public Library of Science for this article.

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