Comparative reproductive biology of the Canaries and Pacific Archipelagos, especially Juan Fernandez

CRAWFORD D.; ANDERSON G.J.; BERNARDELLO G.; SANTOS GUERRA A.

Gran Canaria, España

Simposio; International Conferences on island Biodiversity 2011; 2011

Jardín Botánico Vieira y Clavijo

Endemic insular floras constitute about 25% of the species of vascular plants occurring on about 5% of the Earth’s land surface: 5-10% of the endemic species are highly threatened. Many factors, “natural” and anthropogenic, deterministic and stochastic, impact island plants. The present review focuses on reproductive biology.  Island natives are excellent subjects for studying the evolution of reproductive systems. Especially interesting and informative is how colonizing ancestors adapt to the insular setting, and meet such challenges as the loss of biotic pollinators and compatible mates. Reproductive biology is critical in the establishment and diversification of sexually reproducing insular lineages, making knowledge of RB critical in developing effective conservation strategies. This paper provides a general overview of the reproductive biology of island plants, and focuses on studies needed to address questions about their evolution and reproductive biology. We will emphasize the Canary Islands flora, but will make some comparisons with the reproductive biology of native plants of the Juan Fernández Islands. We hope these comparisons will produce hypotheses to consider for islands in general. Our use of reproductive biology will include pollination biology, breeding systems (features promoting selfing or outcrossing), and mating system (level of selfing and outcrossing).