Robinson Crusoe Principle: The Pollination Biology of the Flora of the Juan Fernandez Archipelago and How the Species Made Do With What They Had

ANDERSON G.J.; BERNARDELLO G.

Columbus

Congreso; Botany 2012; 2012

Botanical Society of America

The fictional Robinson Crusoe, based on a much less attractive real-world sailor (Alexander Selkirk), survived a ship wreck and then became the icon of making do with what you have, surviving, even thriving, on an island with what washed on shore with him. Tod Stuessy and Dan Crawford lead several expeditions to the isolated, small and relatively young Robinson Crusoe (aka Juan Fernandez) islands and, via their ingenuity, commitment, creativity and resilience produced, with many collaborators, a body of work that stands as an example of first-rate evolutionary island botany. Focusing on the reproductive biology of this highly endemic flora, we showed that the rate of dioecy is island-like, that most of the species are self compatible, though not necessarily autogamous, and that the pollination is particularly notable. The morphology of many elements of the flora implies the usual range of pollinators associated with the primary source flora from the South American continent. However, other than hummingbirds, there are virtually no biotic pollinators available.Thus, anemophily characterizes a significant portion of the flora, even serving species where that would not be expected. The pollination of the flora of the Robinson Crusoe archipelago seems to have followed the lead of its eponymous character in making do with what it had to work with.