Reproductive biology of Malpighiaceae: How much do we know?

REPOSI, SOFÍA DANIELA; AVALOS, ADAN ALBERTO; GOTELLI, MARINA MARÍA; ALISCIONI, SANDRA SILVINA; TORRETTA, JUAN PABLO

PLANT SYSTEMATICS AND EVOLUTION

SPRINGER WIEN

Año: 2023 vol. 309

0378-2697

The speciesof the family Malpighiaceae are mainly diversified in the Neotropical Region asa consequence of a specialized pollination system. Due to the production offloral oils as a reward to pollinators, and their interaction with Centris,Epicharis (Centridini) and Monoeca (Tapinotaspidini) oil-collecting bee speciesin most neotropical species, many studies were focused on this interestingmutualistic interaction. However, a few have approached the reproductivebiology of these species. The aim of this study was to gather all the existinginformation to date on the reproductive biology, megagametophyte developmentand apomixis of the Malpighiaceae species and analyze it together. We found 39studies on the reproductive biology of 66 species, of which 47% areself-compatible, 33.3% self-incompatible, 18.2% have a mixed system, showingvariable behavior among populations and 1.5% agamospermic species. We alsofound studies/reports on apomixis for eight species (three genera),polyembryony for six species (five genera) and on the development ofmegagametophyte for 14 species. We showed that our knowledge about thereproductive biology of Malpighiaceae species is scarce and fragmented,obtaining data for only 70–80 species (6–7% out of the total), most of whichbelonged to one population and/or few analyzed individuals. Further studiesabout the integral reproductive biology of these species that focus on theanalysis of inter-population variations of the reproductive characters shouldbe carried out to better understand how certain reproductive traits of Malpighiaceaespecies might have evolved and to provide valuable information on themechanisms of population differentiation.