The effects of flowering phenology and plant fitness within and across a light quality gradient for a native mustard, <i>Cardamine cordifolia</i>
Abstract
There are many abiotic and biotic factors that affect plant distribution. Both of these have the potential to create strong selective pressures and drive habitat specialization. Here Cardamine cordifolia is used to investigate the differences in flowering phenology and bittercress fitness across and among a light quality gradient. Cardamine cordifolia (bittercress) is a native mustard found along streams and sustainable water sources in sup-alpine regions, and in particular in the Rocky Mountains. Bittercress exhibits distinctive phenotypes at varying light qualities resulting from phenotypic plasticity and to some extent ecotypic differentiation (Whiteman el at 2012 in review). Flowering phenology for this plant was monitored determine if a separation of flowering time within the different evironmetns was a mechanism for a pre-zygotic isolation barrier, which would facilitate local adaption by limiting gene flow. Furthermore, the fitness of the bittercress was assessed to gain and understanding of the degree of selective pressures faced within each environment. Due to the early snow melt and advanced life- cycles of plants only the tail end of the flowering season was captured. Even with this disadvantage a distinct trend of flowering was observed. This trend suggests that there may be a very strong isolation barrier present. It was found that the lowest light quality environment (evergreen-shade) had the highest fitness. The fitness component, seed count, was used as the closest measure to the actual fitness of the plant. Willow-shade, had the next highest fitness, and sun with the least. This study has added to our understanding of plant distributions. Given that there is much yet to be discerned. This could support the idea that the overall fitness of bittercress is not solely dependent on a higher proportion of flowers on a single stem, but is likely largely affected by pollinator behavior in addition to stem density. To determine how strong selection pressure is in aiding local adaption, the extent of gene flow via pollination needs to be quantified.
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References (26)
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