INBREEDING DEPRESSION FOR MALE FERTILITY IN AN ANIMAL-POLLINATED PLANT

GLEISER, G.; AUSTERLITZ, F.; BERNASCONI, G.

Turín

Congreso; ESEB 12th Congress - Turin 2009; 2009

European Society for Evolutionary Biology - ESEB

Inbreeding can reduce the fitness of inbred relative to outbred offspring (inbreeding depression). However,we have very limited knowledge of inbreeding depression for pollination success via the male function in flowering plants. We tested whether inbred and outbred plants differ in siring success after open pollination in the dioecious white campion, Silene latifolia (Caryophyllaceae). To this end, we exposed to natural pollination male and female plants that were issued from crosses in which inbreeding and pollen competition intensity were simultaneously manipulated. We used microsatellite markers to genotype the seeds formed, and analysed male fertility by jointly considering the influence of experimentally controlled factors (inbreeding, pollen competition intensity), as well as spatial, phenotypic and kinship effects, using a neighbourhood model. Inbreeding, pollen competition intensity in the previous generation and several phenotypic traits significantly affected male fertility. While inbreeding depression was already demonstrated to affect several vegetative traits in this species, we show here that the level of biparental inbreeding in males also reduces their success as pollen donors.